West Los Angeles Residence

Many of the iconic modern houses of Los Angeles tend to float over the city like tethered space ships on stilts, perched within the backbone of hills that shape the LA basin.

The architect had always yearned for this slightly unreal opportunity and magically found it when he came across a steep house site for sale in West Los Angeles in 2016. The existing house was so overgrown that you could not see the view except from the adjacent public footpath.

Once the site was cleared, the view revealed itself and it became clear that the house design needed to respond directly to the spectacle of the vast urban landscape below. Matching the two-story scale of its neighbors, the house approach is from the rear street and visitors descend into the front entry court. From there the vista opens up via an excision in the mass of the house and it is possible to progress to the south terrace edge to enjoy the view, some seven stories above the street below.

From the front door, visitors are drawn directly upstairs to a wide balcony overlooking the LA basin. The top floor is open on its south side and expressed as a large beamed attic space formed entirely in wood, with walls and ceiling of sand-blasted Douglas Fir and flooring in wide plank White Oak. Kitchen, dining and living all co-exist, orienting to the south view. At the rear of this room is the enclosed Library with custom black steel shelving, which double functions as a media room. The exterior of this top floor volume is clad in custom black zinc panels, emphasizing its role as the crow’s nest, or observatory, of the house.

With rough enclosing walls of sand-blasted concrete wrapping the first two floors, the house is nestled into the hill with bedroom retreats below and the large communal space on the top. Lighting was a vital feature of the house – the addressable LED system allows control of every fixture offering a planned circadian rhythm program which sees the house gradually responding to bright cool sunlight during the day and warm candlelight coloration at night. The gradient changes make for highly responsive mood environments that energize the occupants.

The lower floors include five bedrooms and five bathrooms, as well as a kid’s den space and a small gym. The kids’ rooms open onto the stone tiled infinity pool terrace and the garden extends down the hill with mature pepper and eucalyptus trees obscuring the apartment buildings at the base of the hill. The different levels address the varying family needs as children and parents can own their own territories but come together for social, recreational and dining needs in one of the unique spaces created by the steeply sloping site: the living attic or the pool deck or the garden terrace.