The phrase “ancestral home” typically evokes images of romantic dwellings in faraway lands—a sprawling English country manor, an antiquated Italian palazzo, a fabulous Russian dacha. But as Neda Kakhsaz and Zabie Mustafa can ably attest, a true ancestral home need not stretch back multiple generations and centuries. In fact, any home that stores collective memories and honors the lives, spirit, and cultures of one’s forebears qualifies as ancestral. Even a humble mid-century house located in the suburban sprawl of Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley can—and does—fit the bill.
A few years ago, Kakhsaz and Mustafa, husband-and-wife partners in the emerging design firm Studio MUKA, found themselves at a personal crossroads, facing the challenge of what to do with the childhood home formerly occupied by Kakhsaz’s late father and mother. “We thought about moving to the east side of LA, closer to our friends and colleagues, but we ultimately decided that my parents’ house was a good place to put down roots,” Kakhsaz recalls. “That decision raised lots of questions and set us on our journey. What happens to a physical space that was filled with so much emotion? How do you give life back to something that is seemingly void? What is the real meaning of home? We had to figure it out,” she adds.
There are, of course, no easy answers to those questions, but the couple seized the opportunity to investigate solutions determined by concept as much as form. “Our home is a portrait of our collected histories and sensibilities. We wanted to embrace our Persian and Uzbek roots in a way that doesn’t feel like a trope. Our mission was to celebrate the ceremonies and rituals of our ancestral cultures while creating a home that feels revitalized,” Mustafa explains. “We embarked on a mission to pioneer a new vocabulary of contemporary design, drawing inspiration from a host of far-flung influences,” he continues.
