BY SANDRA BARRERA >LA.COM, PHOTOS BY HANS GUTKNECHT >LA.COM

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When the Greystone Mansion opens its doors to the public for the annual Beverly Hills Garden and Design Showcase on Friday, it will be all about Style.

The Style Network, that is.

For the first time in the six-year history of the event, which continues through Nov. 11, members of the American Society of Interior Designers have been paired with TV personalities and their viewers. Each has, in turn, inspired the look of a room in this 1928 English Tudor Revival-style mansion built for oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny Jr. and his family - all except design guru Thom Filicia.

A "first time Greystonian," the 38-year-old former "Queer Eye" guy, who is host of the Style makeover show "Dress My Nest," has been given the opportunity to leave his own fingerprints all over the living room.

His vision?

"I'm designing the space to take a back seat to the architecture but also have beautiful, simple, elegant things in it," Filicia says by phone. "They're not modern but timely. They speak more to the way we live today than the way we used to live."

Ice-blue wallpaper in a shimmering floral pattern covers the high walls. Natural drapes woven with golden stripes hang from the bay windows. A 19th-century Chinese painting table, a pair of vintage safety glass screens and some 1945-era Klismos side chairs furthers the "understated, restrained and relaxed" environment that Filicia was going for.

"Someone wearing jeans and a polo shirt would be just as comfortable in this space as someone wearing a tuxedo," he says. "I want it to feel like a backdrop for a real life that's current - and not a stage set for a period movie."

Suzanne Kolb, executive vice president of marketing for Style, says a key to the partnership was to create spaces for "real people" and "people with no budget," as represented by her network's viewers.

A walk through the mansion reveals hints of affordable ideas - from the first floor hall's hanging three-dimensional chandelier cutouts and matching wall decals from Urban Outfitters to the handmade lavender-filled linen throw pillows on the handmade linen slipcovered sofas in the solarium.

Upstairs in Mr. Doheny's Suite, estate-sale antiques are mixed and matched with luxurious custom furnishings and art to create Finola Hughes' eclectic vision.

The 46-year-old British actress-turned-fashion commentator for Style's "How Do I Look" began collaborating with designer Ronda Jackson over the summer on the suite's three rooms, including the bedroom, bathroom and dressing room.

And she says it all started with one request: "Do you think it would be possible to do a swing?"

"If she's asking for a swing in her bedroom, anything goes," Jackson recalls saying to herself. "For me, it's important to take someone's wish and bring it to life, and then balance out the rest of the room so it still carries that same leisure, whimsy and love. And curiosity."

The result? A warm, elegant but whimsical vision all silky dark chocolates that Jackson says takes its cues from the "Alice in Wonderland" sequel "Through the Looking-Glass (And What Alice Found There)," complete with a wood swing seat that hangs from ropes by the window.

A comfortable seating area nearby invites chats by the fireplace, which frames a sculptural knot of driftwood and is topped by a landscape painting that's really a mosaic of tiny semi-precious gemstone chips.

"I've never ever worked with a designer ... and to see how things that I might ask for are then interpreted in a stylistic manner is incredible," Hughes gushes. "It's so beautiful."

The bathroom, described as "Out of Africa," evokes colonial Kenya, with its bamboo wall covering, wood crocodile bench and a rubber basket for towels.

In the dressing room, bazaar-like furniture, fabrics, pop art by L.A.-based Eriq Henri Madsen and odd estate-sale finds - perfume bottles, stacks of vintage luggage, dress forms wrapped in a feather boa or quilted paper skirt - were used to plunge Hughes back to the iconic 1970s London shop Biba.

"I love it not because it's `the' thing, but because it's the same as dressing," she says. "An individual room is where you do go out and find a chair the lines of which you love and then you upholster it in a way that really speaks to you."

The deep purple walls of Mrs. Doheny's Suite certainly spoke to Niecy Nash, the 37-year-old comedian and host of "Clean House" who inspired designer William F. McWhorter to create the contemporary vision of femininity.

"Amethyst is my birthstone," she told her designer.

McWhorter designed the room, with its plush shag rug, down sofa and dramatic artwork, around the large-scale floral bedspread and upholstered headboard fabric.

"I just love it," says Nash, who cut a glamorous figure in her fuchsia dress and matching pumps as she walked into the bedroom to have a look around for the first time. "I just knew that it was going to be glamorous, I knew it was going to be feminine, and I knew I was going to want to pack my bags and move in."

Sandra Barrera, (818) 713-3728; sandra.barrera@dailynews.com

HAND-PAINTED WALL PANELS AND CEILING MEDALLION

"This would be the groovy room to go to get away from `them,' " says muralist Len Greco of West Hollywood-based Len Greco Decorative Artistry. He was in the "Bohemian Lounge," painting ghostly phallic symbols on a pair of statue-like figures - a replica of the tile mural found next door in the bathroom of the downstairs bedroom, where Edward L. Doheny Jr. was shot by his secretary, Hugh Plunkett, in a murder-suicide. Elsewhere in the space, historically known as the Doll Room, Greco has painted dragons clutching pearls and stenciled devils and a bat on the ceiling.

CHANDELIERS

Urban Outfitters sells these chandelier cutouts made of medium-density fiberboard for $36 a piece. They can be strung with a hanging socket or without. Available in white and black, both of which can be seen downstairs in the whimsical lime-striped hallway.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE ENTIRE GALLERY

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SIXTH ANNUAL BEVERLY HILLS GARDEN AND DESIGN SHOWCASE

>What: Tour the Style Network-inspired mansion as decorated by interior designers and stroll through the garden to view new landscape trends. The fundraising event benefits restoration of the 80-year-old estate.
>When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday through Nov. 11, until 4 p.m. Nov. 3 and 4.
>Where: Greystone Estate, 905 Loma Vista Drive, Beverly Hills.
>Tickets: $12 to $30; children under 6 are admitted free.
>Information: (310) 550-4753.