Showcasing a down-to-the-studs rebuild, a revamped midcentury cabin, and a hillside dwelling with impressed pavilions, Dwell’s second annual Open House: Los Angeles excursions on October 18 proved that life in Southern California is like no place else—and the residences we featured all exemplify completely different ways in which a house can have interaction with the distinctive landscapes of Los Angeles. The day-long occasion gave 350 design followers the chance to tour a few of the metropolis’s most architecturally progressive residences and meet the architects, designers, panorama designers, and owners who created them, every embracing the distinctive circumstances of their websites.
Hollyhock House
The crowning jewel of Barnsdall Art Park in East Hollywood, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House was the tour’s start line. The flowers that gave the home its identify (which had been consumer Aline Barnsdall’s favorites) are in every single place—whether or not abstracted within the dwelling’s furnishings, home windows, and decorative frieze or blooming across the grounds. A brand new native plant backyard by the panorama structure agency Earthquake and an exhibition of Janna Ireland’s pictures of the property make it clear that Wright’s design, which was his first Los Angeles fee and town’s solely UNESCO World Heritage Site, stays as vibrant as ever.
Dwell Open House: Los Angeles kicked off at Barnsdall Art Park in East Hollywood, the place ticket holders picked up tote luggage with route maps and visited the Hollyhock House earlier than heading out to the opposite three properties.
Designer Oscar Chang stands beside his Stratum chair. The design received our Best Seat within the House contest, and will probably be produced by Vesta Home.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed furnishings, a rug, and art-glass home windows for the Hollyhock House, which Aline Barnsdall donated together with slightly below 12 acres to the City of Los Angeles in 1927.
The temple-like home was influenced by pre-Columbian structure, notably Mayan and Aztec types, although some have additionally described it as Asian or Egyptian. Wright as soon as described the fashion as a “California Romanza.”
Descanso House
Surrounded by aromatic crops chosen by Terremoto to mix in with the prevailing orange, fig, and lemon bushes, the Silver Lake dwelling of Australian architect Richard Stampton is testomony to the notion that context is all the things. After discovering a diminutive home constructed within the Nineteen Twenties (and barely touched since), Stampton retained the unique footprint whereas finishing up a down-to-the studs renovation that whispers relatively than shouts. By detailing the kitchen and loo with pink marble and portray the peaked ceilings in shades of yellow, Stampton introduced within the colours of Southern California’s sunrises and sunsets.
Architect Richard Stampton (left) welcomes guests within the backyard, which was designed by Terremoto with native and drought-tolerant crops. Motorized Warema sunshades in anodized aluminum assist maintain the home cool.
Stampton shared photos of the prevailing home, which was constructed within the Nineteen Twenties and featured a speakeasy bar on the decrease stage.
Stampton used three shades of yellow paint to deliver a golden glow to the light-filled interiors.
Slabs of pink marble heat the kitchen, which is open to the dwelling space. Stampton collaborated with Paul Valentine, who curated the furnishings, together with items by Shin Okuda and Kristin Dickson-Okuda.
Pink marble pops up once more within the visitor toilet, the place Stampton designed and prototyped the door and cupboard handles.
Lark House
As they had been looking for “a tiny home on an enormous lot” that they may make their very own, designer Kathryn McCullough and her husband, Andrew Bulbrook, discovered an 850-square-foot Mount Washington cabin designed by architect Kemper Nomland, Jr., and in-built 1955. Working intently with Taalman Architecture and Terremoto, the couple almost doubled the scale of the home, added a freestanding ADU, and created an out of doors dwelling space in addition to a pool. Now, a journey by the hillside dwelling seamlessly oscillates between indoor and outside areas and previous and current. “The thought,” says Andrew, “was to make use of the brand new to shine a lightweight on the outdated.”
Tucked right into a hillside Mount Washington property, the Lark House is surrounded by bushes and new landscaping by Terremoto.
A round porthole window is a vestige of the unique cabin, which was designed by architect Kemper Nomland, Jr., and in-built 1955.
Architect Linda Taalman and designer-homeowner Kathryn McCullough collaborated to hold the materiality and really feel of the unique timber-frame, post-and-beam cabin into the additions, in addition to the ADU.
Linda Taalman (proper) talks with guests within the eating room, which opens to a big patio overlooking the brand new pool.
San Marino House
The house owners of a 1954 Calvin Straub dwelling in San Marino initially reached out to Alice Fung and Michael Blatt of Fung + Blatt Architects to design a ceramics studio. But over the course of 5 years, the architects did far more: sensitively updating the home and designing further pavilions for the 1.4-acre property that echo the house’s Japanese-inspired traces, together with a pool home complicated with an out of doors kitchen, a guesthouse, and an artwork studio/library. The objective, Fung says, was for the buildings to stay “deferential to the panorama,” a philosophy embraced by the crew at Elysian Landscapeswho joined at a later time and contributed to a number of patios, inexperienced roofs, and far of the backyard.
In San Marino, Fung + Blatt Architects up to date a property with a midcentury dwelling initially designed by Calvin Straub. Besides renovating the primary home, pictured right here, the agency added a sequence of pavilions to the panorama.
Architect Alice Fung (proper) greets guests within the eating room, alongside a mannequin of the property.
The architects opened up the kitchen to make it a nexus for household life and entertaining.
The pool home, set in a multilevel complicated, opens to a beneficiant deck with an out of doors kitchen. The decrease ground holds a spa and a gymnasium.
In addition to the excursions, Dwell Open House attendees took dwelling a present bag that includes an unique occasion publication, the most recent challenge of Dwell, and goodies from our sponsors.