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Beverly Hills, California
When the housemaids scrub the floors they get the spaces in between
The driving force behind my California trip was a reservation for the AIA's John Lautner "Dramatic Homes" tour, a rare chance to visit three private homes designed by one of the most unappreciated (well known) architects and a personal favorite. Lautner knew how to create dramatic spaces, loved heroic structures, thought a lot about details and motorized everything he could possibly think of. What's there not to like?
The first house is actually the last one I had toured. The Sheats-Goldstein residence was designed as a cave (no, really) but could probably be better described as a lair. Lots of things were motorized (a television came out of the floor, glass walls opened and closed) and lots of other things were just damn cool (including the all glass sink that's available as a bonus slide). Sadly I could not find the secret pool filled sharks with laser beams attached to their heads.
Getting there was more than half the fun. Our doomed, full sized air conditioned bus did its painful best in Silver Lake and on Mullholland Drive (much to the distress of the parade of honking, high performance cars trapped in its wake), but Sheats-Goldstein was just too much. Luckily there was another way, a series of overgrown, labyrinthine stairs scaled the 180 vertical feet up to the house, stopping along the way at several railing free overlooks. An unintentionally privileged way to see such an amazing space.
The Sheats-Goldstein House was hard to photograph on a bright day- so much contrast between the dark, dark lair and the open southland beyond- but truly memorable in person. Lautner (a former Wright/Taliesin guy) finished the house in 1963, then finished it again in 1989 (an extensive remodel). In fact the man giving the tour of the house was from the John Lautner Foundation (Lautner died in 1994), had worked on it all his life and is still working on it. He recently added a James Turrell skyspace and was looking at adding a brand new guest house, among other updates and revisions.
A quick, speculative note about the owner- I have good reason to think he may actually be possibly, well, the devil himself. Really. First he's living in Los Angeles (a great place for anyone to live, evil or not). Second there were a lot of pictures scattered around his house of himself with celebrities and models, many of who conceivably could have sold him their soul. Third, he lives in the damn coolest house I have ever set foot in, and you just know that the devil would just have to have a great house with a killer view. And fourth he used a mac- you know the devil would be too smart to bother with a PC. Just a theory mind you.
Meanwhile in the (possible) devil's bedroom, mechoshades hide that endless view straight into Westwood and on to the sea.
The Sheats-Goldstein Residence is spectacular in person, but on a day with a strong sun and a house full of people who would never get the hell out of the way, it wasn’t necessarily the easiest place to photograph. Not like that stopped me or anything.
On Mullholland Drive, not all that far from its start at the 101 and not all that far from Lautner's Chemosphere (its owner Herr Taschen was too busy counting all of his money made selling all those big architectural books to allow anyone to tour), the Garcia residence almost felt like a guesthouse. Split down the middle and open to the cliffs below, it may seem familiar if you're into old basic cable movies. Mel Gibson blew it up in one of the weaker Lethal Weapon movies, yet another reason to dislike Mel Gibson.
The first and oldest of the John Lautner houses we visited, Silvertop is located at the top of a hill in Silver Lake, a fact that makes its name seem somehow less arbitrary. The house is organized around a central living space and features the first ever infinity edge swimming pool. It is the most Wrightian of the houses (not an insult), and included a few great details such as totally private full height glass in the bathroom, a closeable skylight above the bed, lots of creative pocket doors and a few motorized ones. A great house.
