Not since Carlos de Beistegui teamed up with Emilio Terry—or perhaps not since Auntie Mame joined forces with Yul Uhlu—have a client and a decorator been more happily matched than RuPaul Andre Charles and Martyn Lawrence Bullard. RuPaul, of course, is the queen of drag, a revolutionary performer and avatar of glamour recognized around the globe. Bullard, a mainstay of the AD100, is no stranger to enchantment himself—he, too, has built an international reputation based on unapologetic, often outré beauty. When the Drag Race impresario and his husband, rancher Georges LeBar, acquired a Beverly Hills mansion as their new home base in Los Angeles, they naturally called on Bullard, a friend of nearly three decades, to make it pop. “We’ve always loved Martyn’s aesthetic, so we trusted him,” RuPaul says. “I said, ‘Go for it. I can go as far as your imagination will take us.’”
And go for it he did. Draping his magician’s cloak over a grand but uninspired residence built in the 1980s, Bullard transformed the property into a fever dream of Hollywood Regency style that bridges old-school Beverly Hills swank and the vivacious, larger-than-life spirit of his client. “This is the house of Ru, a mansion of style designed as the center stage for the world’s most famous and celebrated drag queen. It’s the ultimate runway for the supermodel of the world,” the designer raves, adding, “I could not imagine a more appropriate place for the universe’s drag mother to hold court.”
Working with architect Christopher Hatch McLean, Bullard recast the complexion of the house by modifying the existing mansard roof, reconfiguring railings and colonnades, and adding a host of neoclassical details. As for decorative drama, the slay bells start ringing the moment one steps through the front door into a palatial, powdery-rose entry hall featuring a sweeping stairway with serious Mommie Dearest overtones. To the right is the formal living room, outfitted with jewel-toned fabrics and pagoda-form étagères that nod to the great decorator Tony Duquette. To the left is the jaw-dropping ballroom, a coup de théâtre crowned with an array of monumental disco balls and covered in photographs of divas on the order of Billie Holiday, Grace Jones, Eartha Kitt, and Dorothy Dandridge. A tondo featuring a 1975 portrait of Diana Ross by photographer Harry Langdon surmounts a custom fireplace that evokes the work of Dorothy Draper, one of the guiding lights for Bullard’s decor.