it's in the pacific palisades apparently.

here's another

sort of looks like a ray kappe house, but i have no definitive proof or answer.

is this the house that sort of hangs over the road on the way to the eames house? i remember seeing this house and being quite enamored of it too.

go knock on the door and ask them. i m sure they'd be glad to tell you all about it.

I think it's right over Sunset. I've almost missed that corner the first time I drove past.

I would go knock on the door except I live in Austin ;p I found the photo on flickr.com and yes fog lite i think I remember some comment someone had posted about it being off sunset. I spent a couple of weeks in LA last year and drove around the area a lot but must have missed it. Is it up near maston's hill house?

"sort of looks like a ray kappe house" Thats what I thought too but couldn't find it anywhere on the kappe+du site or anywhere else but that doesn't mean it isn't him.

Pretty shure it's one of Richard Neutra's projects. Or could it be one Rudolph Schindler's? Very similar styles.

Yeah I like that house. I have also wondered. I hope that helps.

i dunno about schindler or neutra. it might be someone who worked in either office, but it lacks the rigor of either, i think.

Wouldn't be Schindler, surely? Too massy.

"Too massy". That's my new favorite term.

And I agree with holz, seems more like someone "influenced by" than an original.

The building is located on Sunset just east of Chautauqua, and isn't listed in either Webb or Gebhard, so I think we can safely say it wasn't authored by anyone we have heard of.

there is something particularly knowledgeable about the house seen in the first image. See how thing the slab is? Like a flapjack! Yet the beams express an eager chunkiness to them.

Yes, there probably is some eager flapjackery going on, too.

yeah I definitely don't think its schindler or neutra and I couldn't find anything about it on kappe's site but then again he doesn't have much of his stuff on there anyway. But from what little of his stuff i've seen, if I had to guess I would say it isn't him either. Surely there are some LA archinectors on here that would know. Some hipster sci-arc student?

i'll be surprised if it's found that it's either neutra or schindler, too. and maybe not crazy enough for lautner (though that big concrete pier is kind of overly dramatic). ain was much more disciplined/austere, as were ellwood and koenig.

i'm hoping someone among the la-ers can help! we've got a mystery on our hands. i'm sort of hoping it's someone with whom none of us is familiar so we can learn someone new to check out.

Beautiful comment, architechno, and I like "eager flapjackery" too.

all these new archi-words that treekiller could have used in his recent review!

hah hah thanks guys. I could go for a flapjack right now

someone say flapjack?


i don't know who did the building...seems like a long list of potential suspects.

i know bunch of other houses like that in that general idea. i wouldn't want to buy it for what it is. how much they are asking?

82 million dollars.

it looks too new to be any of the older greats, i'm guessing it's a contemporary 'tect. check the detailing of that flat glass plane on the left in the 1st pic...

that flush window detailing happened in earlier eras, too. it wasn't a real nice resolution a lot of the time but, in CA, you don't really worry much about leaks and cold.

but your comment, myriam, made me realize that this could have been 'next generation' modernism along the lines of paul rudolph. imagine that first picture as one of rudolphs' ink-on-mylar exaggerated perspectives and it seems like a fit. so who of his period/inclination would have been working in CA at the time? i did a google search of rudolph-house-california, etc but didn't come up with anything promising.

vado's right. someone needs to knock on the door and ask about the house.

one of the things i loved about it when i passed was it has this magnificent presence hanging over sunset, but the main entrance off of chautauqua is very much open and accessible from the street. it tries to blend in with its neighbors even though it's uncompromisingly modern in a fairly plain jane suburban setting. contrast this to the schindler house (which i also love) that hides from its neighbors.

its actually a relocated lookout tower from the maginot line.

i once contacted the owners of a gregory ain house for a research project. i had come up empty - no published info anywhere and i'm sitting in new orleans with a arch history deadline and nothing. so i just figured out what the address was, wrote the people, and asked them to call me. they provided everything i could possibly need and were excited that some kid at tulane knew about their house.

i actually saw that house from below the other day. i was in LA for the weekend and we were driving along i think sunset towards the ocean and there it was towering over us.

early ed niles?

is that really a flush window? I though it was a massive cut-out and I'm not sure i'm wrong either - damnit!

techno, i was trying to figure the same thing out forever, but decided in favor of glass b/c of the look of the second pic.

interesting, steven--i don't know what makes me think it looks contemporary, then. Hmm. Didn't realize about the flush glass. You should teach a modernism course that I could take, I think I'd like it.

I think it is glass w/ reflection. But initially I thought it was a cutout with trees growing in a courtyard....

Steven

My office used to be Gregory Ain's...Rizzoli is comming out with an Ain book soon

yeah techno i thought that was a cutout at first too but on closer inspection it appears to be a window w/ reflection. Surely there is some brave LArchinector out there who would want to do a little field research and knock on their door?.......

He worked for Ray Kappe...went to SciaArc...was a builder

How mysterious : ) Who is "he"

My partner is trying to remember his name...

apparently it is the only house he designed

I have a job on Chautauqua...my boss says this house is about 1.5 miles north of Sunset (on Chautauqua)...I'll find it, stop by this week and knock on the door (leave a note if necessary). We'll get to the bottom of this...

I am having my people look into the matter...and to think, they were gonna kick me of Archinect

Apparently the client paid around $20k for the lot...over 40 cassions support the concrete columns that hold it up...we still havent pinned down the name, though

are we sure it's not a neutra...he does have the bailey house at 219 Chautauqua, Pacific Palisades...

it is not a Neutra

It is way too heavy handed to be a Neutra...It is a student of Kappe's

40 caissons?
i dunno about that mdler...

I have never seen the house but that has to be REDWOOD!

*cough* *cough*

if it turns out to be a student of ray kappe's, then i'm taking a bow for being pretty darn close and the first to answer....

It's definitely not Schnidler or Neutra. I've always been told Ray Kappe was the architect. A student / employee of Kappe sounds reasonable.

el jeffe

according to my partner, each of the large concrete columns has a number of cassions comming off of it like fingers...possibly nearing 40