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Three things are clear within moments of crossing the threshold into Erica Goodfriend’s Hollywood house: This homeowner loves animals, plants and art. All three are in wild abundance in Goodfriend’s 1923 bungalow.
Three dogs—especially an Australian shepherd mix named Roo—bark and jump around to greet a visitor, while the six cats and three other humans (including her partner, Seth Solle) besides Goodfriend who live here make themselves scarce. Potted houseplants and original art, both big and small, squeeze into every available nook or overlap with each other.
“It’s a lot of energy at the house,” Goodfriend says, which is exactly her intention.
The bungalow is the first house that Goodfriend, 33, has owned herself, though as a broker with Living Room Realty, she’s very comfortable in the real estate space. She purchased it in 2019 because it fit the bill as a home that had a lot of character and original details, but had plenty of areas that needed renovation too. She lives here with her fiancé and two roommates, the aforementioned nine animals, and too many houseplants to count.
“Happy and stressed out” is how it makes Goodfriend feel to have 13 mouths to feed and hundreds of plants to water under one roof, she says. But it was always her goal to cultivate community among the roommates, rather than everyone just seeing it as a place to sleep and shower and mostly hang out in their individual rooms.
One easy way to do that: feed them.
Before she sold houses, Goodfriend worked as a pastry assistant at Ava Gene’s and, before that, at Nopa in San Francisco. Today, she spends her energy baking tiered cakes and elaborate pavlovas for her housemates and any friends who have stopped by. (She has a policy that if her car is in the driveway, friends are welcome to pop in and say hello.)
She’s not the only one at the house who’s skilled in care and feeding. Dustin Eck is one of the roommates and also the head roaster at Upper Left Roasters. He taught everyone how to properly use the espresso machine, and they all have lattes every morning. The community spirit has been a gift to Eck, as has a cat named Frankie who has chosen Eck to be his human and sleeps on his arm every night.
“It’s a built-in group of friends and a built-in support system for me,” Eck says.
The coffee station is located just outside the kitchen, the first big-ticket renovation project that Goodfriend tackled after buying the house. It features a slim, retro Smeg brand refrigerator, farmhouse sink with yellow gold finishes, and open shelving for dishes (and art and plants, of course).
Goodfriend’s got an eye for colorful and eclectic design, with heavy reliance on local artists and businesses to see her designs through. (She’s certainly doing her part to keep Arium Botanicals plant store on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the black.) In addition to helping clients buy and sell homes, Goodfriend offers her interior decorating services with a side hustle called, fittingly, “Have Your Cake.”
Goodfriend also overhauled the entire top floor to be a primary suite with a new bathroom and gigantic walk-in closet. It’s a showstopper, with exposed ceiling beams, skylights, and original Douglas fir floors.
The bathroom is pink and green with a terrazzo countertop. Designing the bathroom taught her, in a hands-on way, to lean into her own instincts even if it goes against the conventional wisdom of prioritizing resale value. She had to go with her heart, even though the pink palette might not be for everyone.
“I think of it as kind of neutral,” she says. “I know that’s a crazy thing to say.”
In the shower, pots of variegated monsteras fight with shampoo bottles for space. Downstairs, on the mustard-color bookshelves in the living room, needlework and paintings hang from nails driven right into the fronts of the shelves.
“I’m fully running out of room for both plants and art,” Goodfriend admits. “Everything is layered. We’re putting as much into the house as possible.”
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