LOS ANGELES -- She spends 14 hours a day, six days a week pampering clients such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Drew Barrymore at her Beverly Hills spa. So it's no wonder Hollywood skin-care guru Sonya Dakar calls her "intimate" five-bedroom, five-bathroom home a personal sanctuary.
"It really doesn't count as a big house compared to some of my friends," says Dakar, 59, reclining on a twill sofa in the sunlit den. "But I think it's cozy, so I love it. It's perfect for me."
The two-story, English-style house is everything Dakar dreamed it would be when she moved in with her 62-year-old husband, Israel, 18 years ago.
"The house is really mixed. I would definitely say the interior is modern, classy and retro. It's glam, like the '50s, which is one of my favorite times ever."
Dakar draws inspiration from plenty of other sources, too. The raw mahogany floor in the foyer reminds her of "ancient times," the white piano in the den is a keepsake from her four grown children's lessons, and her passion for travel pops up throughout the 5,100-square-foot house.
"This table was handmade by Chinese people," Dakar says, pointing out a 24-carat gold-trimmed side table she purchased in London. "The way that I felt, it was so much a luck kind of thing and warm." She traces a hand over the Chinese scripture etched inside. "It's kind of like the Ten Commandments for Christian and Jewish."
The native of Israel, who moved to the USA in 1977, also fell in love with a French chest she found at an antique shop in Los Angeles in 1988.
"This is almost 150 years old. If you open it, it's all red velvet. A woman went to a retirement home, and the kids decided they were going to sell the stuff. I said, 'I have to have that!'"
Staying true to her eclectic taste, she turned the chest, previously used for luggage, into an end table by painting it forest green and covering it with glass to display her prized family photos.
Dakar is a big fan of warm earth tones and has incorporated subdued shades of white, cream, green, yellow and brown throughout her Beverly Hills home. "My sign is Taurus. That's why I am drawn very much to organic and earthy tones."
The one exception is her dining room with the hand-painted chairs, where Dakar frequently entertains friends and family with lavish home-cooked Italian and Middle Eastern meals.
"I love the dining room. I chose the old French-kind-of-looking chairs, but I designed the frame by myself, and I chose the artist. He's 75 or 80 years old, and he does frescoes in Italy."
The centerpiece of the cream-and-white stucco room is the 110-year-old crystal chandelier. "We bought a house when my daughter Mimi was young. We rented it out until she got to a certain age where she could pay the mortgage, but I didn't want to leave a French antique there, so I kept it in my house."
Mimi, 32, a petite blonde visiting from that nearby home, teases, "When my mom buys property, she has a habit of negotiating it with the furniture."
Says Dakar: "If the furniture is something that I feel has soul and character, and I feel the connection, it's almost like when you fall in love at first sight."
This was the case, too, with the dark wood desk in her bedroom -- a desk covered with her children's photos, cards, poems and letters. "I save my kids' letters and faxes for inspiration. It's tradition with us. I don't like to have an office-y office at my house because then you go back to business. This desk is over 70 years old." Like the chandelier, she borrowed it from Mimi's house.
The 1,400-square-foot room is also where she and her husband sit and talk at day's end. "Sometimes I have coffee here with my husband in the morning," Dakar says, gesturing toward her French dining set. "We overlook Century City and the pool and trees. I think that's my favorite spot in the house."
Her 30-year-old French sleigh bed is another place to relax after work. "Mentally, I feel better when I have the best-quality bedding, so I spoil myself with a silk comforter and 100% cotton sheets."
And she unwinds in her master bath with an oversized tub, shower and double vanity covered with gallon-sized products from her new skin-care line. "I do what I preach. When my body is wet, I put on the lotion, I put on the oil, I put on the cream. I really do."
After her 10-minute commute from work to home, "I definitely feel like this is my sanity when I come here. I feel it's like my peace. Definitely it helps me recharge for the next day."
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