Inside Linda Gray’s house, where an album cover legend and a soap opera star raised their kids
Gray was born in Santa Monica in 1940 and spent the 1960s working as a model and appearing in hundreds of television commercials before moving into small film and TV roles. She married Thrasher in 1962, and by the start of the following decade the couple had two young children, Jeff and Kelly, and had outgrown their apartment in Encino. Wanting more room, they bought three acres and hired an architect for something open and informal rather than grand.
Thrasher brought his own history to the project. He started at Capitol Records in 1957 and became art director at Warner Bros Records in 1964, a job he held for 15 years. In that role he shaped the look of album covers for Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead and Frank Sinatra, among many others, and won a Grammy in 1974 for the Mason Proffit album Come and Gone. After leaving Warner Bros in 1979 he started his own advertising business. The studio he kept on the property reflected the same visual instincts he brought to record sleeves, with no drapes and few walls separating him from the rest of the house.
The finished home ran to 15 rooms plus a pool, a tennis court and Thrasher’s studio, but the couple kept the interior plain rather than showy. The kitchen was built with three walls so Gray wouldn’t be cut off from the rest of the house while cooking, and the bathroom and dressing area was about as formal as the place got, softened by Thrasher’s collection of hats. Animals came with the territory too, including a dog, two horses, three cats and five peacocks that had wandered over from a neighbor’s property and simply stayed.
By the time this feature ran in October 1982, Gray was in the middle of the run that would define her career. Dallas kept her on air as Sue Ellen through 1989, with later returns in TV movies and a 2012 to 2014 revival on TNT.
Her marriage to Thrasher, on the other hand, ended in divorce in 1983, not long after this article appeared. Thrasher continued working in advertising and photography until his death from cancer in 2006, and the ranch house he helped design remains a snapshot of a specific moment, a young television star and a record industry veteran raising their kids on the same property where he shot album covers and she learned to play one of prime time’s most complicated wives.
Dallas actress Linda Gray’s house with her husband Ed Thrasher (1982)
Home for the Thrashers is a ranch complete with a dog, two horses, three cats, and five adopted peacocks
Eleven years ago when Ed, Linda, and their children, Jeff and Kelly, decided to move from an apartment in Encino to a home of their own, they bought three acres north of Los Angeles and asked an architect to build them an open, informal ranch house.
“Because it was in the earthquake area,” says Linda, “we wanted a one-story home. It was supposed to he finished in January 1971, but it wasn’t, so we lived in a trailer for six months, moving into the house as soon as workmen found us space. Even though we had to wrap everything, including ourselves, in drop cloths or plastic, we loved our house. We still love it today — it’s stood the test of time.”
The 15-room home
The Thrashers have a 15-room home, pool, tennis court, and a studio where Ed, head of an advertising agency, still does photography. Son Jeff (he worked on Dallas with his mother this summer) and daughter Kelly are in school.
“The living room is informal,” says Linda, “because we are not formal. I’d be happy in a tree house, which is actually what I asked the architect to build. Ed and I did the decorating —it’s just all the things we like. His studio (far left) is exactly like the house — no drapes, few walls, just open.”
Linda Gray’s kitchen design
Kitchen was designed with three walls so Linda would not be isolated when she cooks. These days she spends so much time in Dallas, she doesn’t have time to make her “all-day soups.” “I cook and eat faster ow,” she says, laughing. “I like raw vegetables.”
The bathroom and dressing area in Linda Gray’s home
Bathroom/dressing room is where Thrasher informality almost ends, but elegance is tempered with Ed’s hat collection. Their down-to-earth lifestyle makes anyone feel right at home — even a neighbor’s five peacocks that keep coming back.
