You'd have to take up skydiving to beat this view. On a clear day, Larry and Beverly Schnur can see all the way from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, with the whole city of Los Angeles spread out in between. "Friends call us for the weather report," says Larry. "I've been tempted to set up a camera in the backyard and create our own Web page."

That would be one way to share their good fortune, for the Schnurs are lucky enough to live in one of those spectacular Hollywood houses that comes with a private palm-lined drive and a pedigree. Built in 1953 for Dave Chasen, whose restaurant was a rendezvous for some of the silver screen's biggest stars, the house was designed by celebrated architect Paul R. Williams to take full advantage of its site, high on a promontory above the Sunset Strip. "As soon as you walk in the front door, you're drawn straight through the house to wide sliding glass doors that open onto the lanai and pool-and the city in the distance, " says Beverly, a former decorating editor as House Beautiful. "Or you can head left into the living room, with a curved wall that sweeps you right into that heart-stopping view." Her husband, a retired financial executive who now spends as much time as he can racing cars, also qualifies as an architecture buff. "The house flows seamlessly," Larry says. "The proportions are terrific; you won't find a bad angle in the place. Obviously, this guy Williams was a threat to score from anywhere."

Yet when their real estate agent first took them to the house, it didn't show very well. "Every wall was either mirrored or painted the same shade of tan," recalls Beverly. "It looked tired and old. There were leaks here and there and the garden had gone to seed." But the two of them could see beyond the neglect. "We knew it was an unpolished gem that deserved to be done right," Larry adds. When Beverly decided she couldn't do it alone, she called designers Neil Korpinen and Rick Erikson, who share the Schnurs' love for Hawaii and easy going island living (remember that lanai). "Think sultry air and balmy breezes," says Korpinen, who saw the bright, saturated light and immediately flashed on "the orchid colors" of Hawaii-a place where all of them have vacationed for years. "We wanted to keep it very open and informal, Big Island-style, with lots of natural materials and intriguing textures," says Erikson.

The house measures more than 6,000 square feet, but there are actually very few rooms-and they're all huge. How did the designers make sure it didn't feel intimidating? Warm colors and several inviting seating areas did the trick in the living room. That distinctive curved wall was originally faced with stone, but previous owners had covered it with stucco, which proved irreversible. So the designers came up with the idea of retexturing the wall with grass cloth panels, framed with stripes of mahogany stained to look like traditional Hawaiian koa wood.

The "world's largest sofa," according to Korpinen-"over 20 feet long; it took eight men to carry it in"-follows the line of the wall and accentuates the curve. It's a clever reinterpretation of the original, designed for the room and spotted in a vintage photography. This seafoam-green sofa anchors one seating group; the other centers on a sinuously curved Robsjohn-Gibbings coffee table next to a bright purple 1948 Eero Saarinen Womb chair. Why purple? "Why Not?" replies Larry. A man who was wearing Hawaiian shirts back in the 1970s clearly has no fear of color. The powder room, by the way, is painted chartreuse.

The Master bedroom is so large that each night table is nine feet long; it's no wonder all the vintage rattan furniture from their previous home fits in comfortably. This is where a little Hawaiian kitsch-notice the hula-girl lamps-takes over from midcentury modern. "The whole project was so much fun," sighs Beverly. "The house feels like a serene oasis at the end of the worlds, and yet we're only minutes from the main drag. At night, we can lie in bed and watch the string of pearls-the airplanes landing at LAX in an endless shimmering line."