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Classic Modern in Connecticut: Rotating House, $1.75M

Brian Libby — 2010-06-11T15:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Imagine you find a house for sale with a master-bedroom view of the surrounding garden. But what you really wanted was a view of the pond on the other side of the property where the birds and other wildlife flock. If you own the Rotating House in Wilton, Conn., that can be changed in about 50 minutes.

This entire house, a mid-century-modern classic designed by noted architect Richard T. Foster and built in 1968, sits like a flying saucer on a small pedestal, from which it rotates 360 degrees. "It's been written up all over the place," says the house's listing agent, JoAnne Fisher of William Pitt/Sotheby's International Realty. "It was featured in House and Garden magazine when [the magazine] was 65 cents."

The Rotating House is currently on the market for $1,750,000.
The price has been reduced from its earlier $2,295,000 listing. But that's not a reflection on the house itself, which had its interior extensively renovated in 2005 (kitchen and bathrooms updated, walls removed) and is clearly a one-of-a-kind property. Instead, blame the price drop on the Great Recession and the fact that it has only three bedrooms. For the same price, Wilton's more traditional homes and new "McMansions" have at least five bedrooms and four baths.

Foster's design premiered the same year as Stanley Kubrick's classic, head-tripping "2001: A Space Odyssey," and just a year before man walked on the moon. In that sense, the house is a stylistic time-capsule that's retro and futuristic at the same time.

Foster also collaborated on the design with legendary architect Philip Johnson, who designed the renowned Glass House in nearby New Canaan, Conn. This area, a bedroom community of New York, is home to many affluent residents and has given birth to numerous mid-century modern gems by master architects from Frank Lloyd Wright (the Sander House in Stamford) to Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (the legendary Farnsworth House in West Hartford).

The Rotating House belongs to a small class of modernist properties designed in the 1960s, when the boxy quality of early modernism -- exemplified in the Case Study houses of Los Angeles or in Van Der Rohe's designs -- gave way to something more animated and futuristic. That often meant the clean lines of modern were applied to more organic, curvy shapes, and there was briefly a proliferation of circular houses. They include the Mayes Residence in Glen Ellyn, Ill. designed by Wright protégé Don Erickson; the Malin Residence in Los Angeles (aka "Chemosphere"), by John Lautner; and the Zidell House in Portland, Ore. by Saul Zaik (built for a shipbuilding tycoon using a ship's mast).

You could also place the Wilton house with some commercial buildings of the era, parts of which also turned: the now-demolished Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas (commissioned by Howard Hughes); the Space Needle in Seattle (built for the 1962 World's Fair); La Ronde atop Honolulu's Ala Moana Building (thought to be the first rotating restaurant); The Sun Dial Restaurant atop Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza Hotel, and Toronto's CN Tower.

For all its modernist pedigree and the novelty of its rotation, though, the house at its best is really about simpler functions and pleasures, like natural light and views. The residence has floor-to-ceiling glass on the entire perimeter; the views of the property's four acres of rural countryside, and beyond, are continuous and massive, like a 360-degree IMAX screen.

"I believe this house should be bought by someone who is a collector of art," its listing agent adds. "It's just a piece of architecture that is a real collector's item. And in this market, where the prices are so much more reasonable, it's only going to get better."

A video on Yahoo's online style magazine, Shine, offers a peek. "Out with the square and in with the round," offers the host cheerfully.

See more homes for sale in Wilton, Conn. at AOL Real Estate.

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Are Bedrooms With No Windows a New Trend?

Brian Libby — 2010-06-03T09:15:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Forget the room with a view -- in fact, you can forget the room with a window. Don't be surprised to discover during your next apartment hunt a strange phenomenon -- a windowless bedroom. But is it really OK to live in a windowless bedroom or, more specifically, to allow windowless rooms to be called bedrooms?

This is an increasingly relevant question since a 2006 change in the federal government's Universal Building Code (UBC) that allowed bedrooms to be built without windows. Historically, both national and most local building codes have required windows in bedrooms for ventilation and safety. But improvements in fire safety and building materials called into question the necessity of such regulation, so today bedroom windows are officially optional.

No market was hit harder by the Great Recession than condominium sales, and today what few projects that are going forward nationally are making more compact use of space.

The Madison Capital Times, for example, reports that despite nearly a third of the 234 bedrooms in the proposed 75-unit Humbucker Apartments having no windows, the project was unanimously approved by the Madison Plan Commission.

"With the exception of the rooms without windows I really like this project," Alderwoman Julia Kerr said while commission member Tim Gruber pressed developers during their testimony about concerns about light-deprived tenants.

Ironically, today there is more evidence than ever that natural light affects human physiology in measurable ways. In my 2003 New York Times story called "Beyond the Bulbs: In Praise of Natural Light," I write about how one's body knows the difference between electric and natural illumination. It's like knowing the difference between nutritious food and a bag of Doritos.

Artificial light exists primarily in the long wavelength, the red region. But the body's circadian system, governing waking and sleeping patterns, prefers light in the blue region of shorter waves, which suppress the natural hormone melatonin and stimulate the hormone serotonin. The combination leads to greater alertness.

For the human body, electric illumination is ''ineffective compared to something as simple as waking up and looking out the window at the blue sky,'' Dr. Mark Rea of the Lighting Research Center, part of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said then. His research and the center's, drawing from previous studies of Dr. Alfred Lewy of Oregon Health Sciences University, have helped to determine definitively that human performance is improved by natural light.

This evidence also exists in ample studies of environments outside the home, such as schools and retail spaces. One study in 2000 by the Heschong Mahone Group of Sacramento, Calif., involved 20,000 students in California, Colorado and Massachusetts in 1998 and 2002. It found that standardized test scores among comparable students could be as much as 26 percent higher when they attended classes in buildings illuminated primarily by natural light, compared with those who relied mainly on artificial light. Another Heschong Mahone study, conducted in 1995 at a Wal-Mart store in Lawrence, Kan., showed 40 percent higher sales at checkout counters that were underneath skylights.

But does one really need natural light in architectural spaces devoted first and foremost to their occupants being asleep? What's more, some might argue that government regulations against windowless rooms are an unnecessary interference with market preferences, now that safety is no longer a concern. And besides, the last several years have seen a proliferation of loft-style residential spaces, in which interior walls can be created without windows.

Isn't allowing windowless bedrooms in regular dwellings the next logical step?

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Backyard Cottages: Affordable Housing Solution?

Brian Libby — 2010-06-01T16:15:00 00:00

Filed under: Design,Economy,Lifestyle

It's a story that touches upon the nation's economic woes, the challenge of preventing sprawl, and the quirky ingenuity of the Pacific Northwest. But is the trend of renting one's backyard cottage really big enough to have any effect beyond the symbolic? Well, yes and no.

The focus of a recent USA Today article is mostly on Seattle, where the city has seen an increase in the number of backyard cottages in single-family neighborhoods since the city changed zoning rules in 2006. It quotes one property-owner, who built a single-bedroom, 437-square-foot cottage on the site of his former garage, as saying. "I want to preserve rural areas around Seattle, and I don't want the suburbs continuing to march on without any limits.

"One way to do that," says the homeowner, 47-year-old architect John Stoeck, "is to add more density to these inner-city neighborhoods."

In Seattle, as well as in growing number of American cities, municipal governments have set urban growth boundaries in place because sprawl ultimately becomes an economic drag, because of costs associated with added transit, traffic and pollution. This relative scarcity of land for development forces people to get more creative about making use of spaces that might otherwise remain underutilized.

In a struggling economy, where cheaper housing options are more welcome, making such efficient use of space also seems more relevant. The construction costs for Stoeck's backyard cottage in Seattle were about $50,000. When completed this summer, he plans to rent it for around $900 a month. If successfully rented at that rate, it would only take about five years to pay off the construction cost and start earning pure profit. What's more, $900 is a pretty good deal for a stand-alone home in Seattle; backyard cottages can make a dent in the city's need for affordable housing.

Backyard cottages are not a new concept. They're part of the more broadly termed "accessory dwelling unit" that includes numerous kinds of extra spaces on a single-family home's property: the apartment over the garage, in the basement, the attic, or in the garage itself.

In past decades of economic struggle or greater social conservativism, such as in the 1930s and '40s, many American families rented out an extra space as a way to earn extra income (especially with more women staying home). It helped with the mortgage payment or with other expenses. It was a common part of the cultural landscape. (Think of The Fonz on TV's "Happy Days," living above the Cunningham family's garage.)

Generations before that, there were carriage houses, where carriages were kept and servants were quartered. Later these were converted for extended family use. But after World War II, society moved toward the suburban ideal, with a home for everyone the new American dream.

But since the 1950s, particularly amid the development of more bland, suburban developments (think cul de sacs, tract homes and McMansions) communities have adopted stricter residential zoning regulations. In some homeowners' eyes, backyard cottages and other accessory dwellings are a threat to their privacy and security.

Meanwhile, the romantic idea that everyone could afford home ownership, and that it was worth it to sprawl out to the horizon or bend the mortgage rules to make it happen, extended all the way through to the George W. Bush administration.

But now that tough -- or some would say realistic -- times have returned, the concept of making smart use of space seems just that: intelligent and efficient. Accessory units, whether over a garage, in a basement, or a stand-alone structure, tend to be small and utilize existing space whenever possible. That's a key principle of being green and sustainable.

Not everyone thinks it's time to let backyard cottages be built willy-nilly across otherwise pristinely quiet neighborhoods. The USA Today story quotes Seattle architect and developer Marty Liebowitz as arguing that cottages could threaten neighbors' freedom to "barbecue, entertain guests and walk around naked if they're kinky." Local arborist Michael Oxman also expresses concern that building too many cottages would "decimate the urban forest of Seattle" by replacing trees with cottages and parking spaces.

It's as if Liebowitz and Oxman are saying, "That Fonzie was a troublemaker -- and there's a whole army of them invading!" But they needn't worry about an accessory dwelling unit invasion anytime soon. Notice that the total number of backyard cottages built since the Seattle zoning change in 2006, according to Keen's story -- about 50 -- is about the same as one medium-sized condominium project. In other words, accessory dwelling units, by their very definition, are always going to be the add-on, a number too small to substantially change society or derail Liebowitz's vision of nude domesticity.

But if there isn't a seismic shift happening in housing, there at least might be a subtle ground shift at work.

Disappearing are the days when neighborhoods are made to share a vanilla sameness. Successful neighborhoods need not only a mix of uses -- the corner market that keeps you from driving to the big-box, the nearby school that negates the need for busing -- but also scales and ranges of residence sizes. It's a way to prevent the ghettoization of people who look just like you, drive the same car, and choose the same carbon-copy house plan.

This isn't just New Urbanism -- the revival of compact, walkable places -- but is part of the natural real estate spectrum that every city has traditionally had in its own backyard.

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Advice From Levi Strauss Exec-Turned-Interior-Designer

Brian Libby — 2010-04-16T09:45:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

Last month the San Francisco Chronicle's Ann-Minh Le interviewed interior designer Angela Free, who left her career as an executive with Levi Strauss & Co. to work with individual clients on their homes.

In the story, Free offered a "cheat sheet" of short tips on how to get the most out of an interior design project. One tip, for example, involved layering and contrast:

Rooms with depth and interest are often the result of a multitude of contrasting visual and textural layers - rough and soft, rustic and sophisticated, shiny and matte, dark and light," Free said. "Layering in a multitude of subtle details will create a far more visually interesting room than relying on any one dominant design element which one can tire of over time - quite often sooner rather than later."

She also talked about fabrics, particularly technological advances that have transformed the look and feel of traditional outdoor fabrics from raspy to soft and even sleek.

Recently I spoke with Free to seek out specific advice for those who rent their homes and are limited by what changes are allowed.

RS: What's the easiest way to make a change in an apartment or rental home without spending a lot of money?

AF: If the landlord allows flexibility with paint, probably the most dramatic and inexpensive way to make it more personalized is to use color. Sometimes I know that isn't even allowed, but if it is, that's kind of opening the door to really transformative kinds of effects. Color can be used in so many ways. Worst case, you can paint it back to white when you leave.

I live in a rental apartment and have wondered about changing the white walls, but I like how light shades help distribute natural light.

There's white and the 10,000 shades of white. There's so much breadth even within a neutral color. The same pale can go very warm or very gray or even be cool with a gray cast to it. Even subtle shifts like that can do something. You can stay within a range of neutrals and still have a diff feeling in the space. The whites they use for rentals can often be a colder white tone.

You lived in Jakarta and Manilla for six years before studying interior design at the University of California-Berkeley. What drew you to those Asian cities and is there something about the style and culture present there that has affected your sensibility as a designer?

I went with my husband's job and we lived there as a family. I was still working for Levis on the sourcing side. I'd say all the places I've lived have been woven into the fabric of my taste and preferences. For example, I grew up in Japan and lived in England. So I had the Asian influence early on, then European continental exposure in my teenage years, and came to America in my last year of high school. Then going to Southeast Asia, to Jakarta and Manila, was a very different experience. All of them have influenced me in some small way or big way. I think you hear a lot of designers say it's travel that is really the ultimate creative feed, a way to clear your mind and see things differently.

Are there certain basic principles about proportion, colors or other visual aspects of a space people should keep in mind as guiding principles?

There are definitely specific rules about proportion, but it's a subjective thing and tough to articulate. Maybe one good message would be about not overloading furniture into a small space. Sometimes you have to be a ruthless editor and keep the scale of the furniture proportionate to the size of the room. If you're in a space and it feels like there's maybe too much everywhere, maybe there is. Keeping things streamlines will be a more successful result.

I don't know if there are any rules on color. We all have the things that we do like. Does a dark space make it smaller or a light space make it larger? I don't know, but when you use darker colors there can be a more dramatic result. If you're in a small space, a dark tone can go along with that rather than fight limitations. But I'm not big on rules. The only thing I avide completely is a period room. It's dated.

In the Chronicle article you come out very much against creating designs devoted to any one particular period, instead emphasizing the superiority of a mix. Many designers feel this way now, but a generation or two ago, creating a period look was the norm. How or why has the approach to period changed?

It's a very interesting question, actually, I suspect it's rooted in wanting spaces to reflect who people are and have a more personalized result. In a period room you can't get that. The intention is to look like something else. It's about individuality and comfort. Functionality is more of a requirement. In our grandparents old sitting room, it wasn't that comfortable. Bringing in all these influence can be a terrible hodgepodge or something really successful. It's not just about throwing in a little bit of this and that. You have to have a plan. Designers' overriding principles with regard to color and proportion also need to be observed to make sure it's successful. When it's well done, I think it can be very successful.

You mentioned in the Chronicle interview that you appreciate the chance to take your time without being subject to the timelines of a retail cycle. Then later you talk about the importance of the house reflecting the people who live there and having a soul. Is there a link there between one's home and having the opportunity to decorate and design it over a longer period of time? Can one's home really look its best when someone has just moved in?

I never really thought about it that way. It's interesting with the economy having tanked how it has, I think people are being more thoughtful and less about filling the 20 thousand square foot house with everything new and creating something in six months. The background that I came from, this retail cycle, was absolutely brutal in terms of allowing the creative process to unfold in the way that it does. It had to be that way. But I guess I've discovered that without that rigidiy it's amazing how much more room there is for creativity to flow.

I once visited a Levis store in Tokyo that used the brand's signature denim and circular metal rivets as a basis for the entire interior design. Have you ever incorporated Levis into a project?

Interesting. I can't say that I have. It's an interesting visual merchandising approach to the brand. Levis actually is more of a manufacturer and less of a retailer. They do have a few freestanding stores, but generally they're a supplier to retail.

I think it pairs very well with the Japanese approach to apparel and design. I think they take more risks. We have such a cookie cutter philosophy in our retail environments.

What does your own home look like?

It is a blend of classic and modern - not easily defined - definitely reads modern and fresh but with lots of classical references and architecture happily alongside modern furniture shapes. Palette is light and airy - primarily pale but with some nice dark features

What is a home that you really love but didn't design?

I love the work of interior designer Orlando Diaz Azcuy - and his home is stunning!! Beautifully rendered - pale, spare, beautiful proportions, very clean, great art and furniture shapes.

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Cheaper Rents Mean Higher Commute Costs

Brian Libby — 2010-03-30T17:29:00 00:00

Filed under: Renting

The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), a nonprofit organization promoting more livable and sustainable urban communities, announced this week the results of its expanded Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which looks at the cost of living in different metropolitan area neighborhoods based on combined housing and transportation costs as well as accompanying urban design. The Index examines 337 metro areas across the country, some 161,000 neighborhoods representing about 80 percent of the U.S. population.

When middle class flight to the suburbs was at its apex in the 1970s, the poorest members of most urban populations lived in the city center. Although the lost tax dollars meant that cities like New York and Detroit disintegrated into graffiti-strewn, crime-ridden wastelands, at least the subways and buses still made it easy for those without cars to get around.

Now, however, as America's city centers have been reborn as destinations for more affluent citizens seeking highrise condos and pedestrian-friendly environments, people earning less are facing a double-sized expense: the massive transportation costs of living on the outskirts."The price tag on a house is often the determining factor for families when they choose where to live," reads the CNT's H+T Affordability Index executive summary. "People often drive far from metro centers in search of affordable rents and mortgages and opt to settle in communities with lower housing costs. This 'drive 'til you qualify' trend has encouraged outward sprawl around our nation's cities as Americans pursue housing that fits their budget.

"But the true cost of a house is not reflected in its price tag alone. Buyers and policy-makers often do not consider the transportation costs associated with a home's location. For most families, transportation is the second biggest household expense and, although it is directly impacted by where we live, it does not factor into current measures of housing 'affordability'."

The CNT defines affordability as a household's combined housing and transportation costs being no more than 45% of income. In this scenario, the index found that 48,000 communities considered affordable by the conventional housing-only measure were, in fact, not affordable to residents. Overall, in the more than 300 metro regions studied, combined housing and transportation costs are lower in central cities and more compact suburbs that have mixed residential and commercial neighborhoods, a wide range of transportation options, and pedestrian-friendly streets.

For example, the Index cites a home in the Washington, DC suburb of Loudoun County, Virginia taking an average of 28.7 percent of household income, with transportation raising that to 55.9 percent. Montgomery County, Maryland, also a DC suburb, shows an average 26.6 housing costs but rises to 45.9 percent with transportation costs added in.

As always, crunching numbers can produce varying results based on the factors involved-or not involved. For example, one might find cheaper combined housing plus transportation costs renting an inner-city apartment and walking or bicycling to work. But when the advantages of owning a home and building equity are figured in, buying a house or condo further from city center might still be a more sound overall financial choice. What's more, many cities have substantially expanded their mass-transit links to the suburbs.

In my hometown of Portland, for example, the MAX light rail line is focused on connecting the city center to suburbs like Gresham and Beaverton, and it has received more funding in the last 30 years than Portland's central-city streetcar lines. But it's still true that the more sprawled out a city is, the harder it becomes for even those mass transit lines to be comprehensive enough to move the majority of commuters.

Still, the CNT study ultimately is further reinforcement of the growing consensus that urban planning must better accommodate what's called the "20 minute living": the idea that open spaces (planned and natural), grocery stores, workplaces, libraries, events, public and private schools all exist within a concentrated area. As one figures the affordability of a place to live, not just housing and transportation but the entire matrix of household expenses, this may be the ultimate rule to live by. If you're being asked to drive an hour each way to work, you're not just facing bigger gas bills, but a deficit of time, family and community.

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Best 'Time-Saving Cities' on the West Coast

Brian Libby — 2010-03-23T17:22:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

The phrase "New York minute" is said to have originated in Texas around 1967, a reference to how a Manhattanite does in an instant what a Texan would take a minute to do. Comedian Johnny Carson once defined "New York minute" as the interval between a Manhattan traffic light turning green and the guy behind you honking his horn.

So what would the late "Tonight Show" host, or proud Texans like George W. Bush say to New York's being listed by Real Simple magazine as only the 13th fastest "Time-Saving City" in America?

Adam Bluestein, a writer for Real Simple, defines a time-saving city as having takeout on every corner, easy access to a doctor, and timed traffic lights, among other criteria. "These conveniences can ease even the most chaotic days," he writes.

If so, the top three listees -- Seattle, Portland, San Francisco -- seem to indicate that the west coast is inherently less of a time waster than the east coast. Boston was the highest eastern-seaboard scorer at fourth, with Minneapolis and Denver rounding out the top five.

Bluestein and magazine staffers sorted through reams of data and rank large American cities on five criteria: "Getting Around" (traffic, walkability, airport on-time performance); "Health and Safety" (average doctor-appointment wait time, response times of emergency medical services); "Information and Technology" (broadband and wireless availability, bookstores and libraries per capita); "Green Time-Savers" (recycling access, number of farmers' markets and community gardens, bike friendliness); and "Lifestyle" (number of personal trainers and organizers, restaurants offering takeout per capita).

Bluestein calls the top finisher, known for its coffee, grunge music and idyllic natural setting, "an icon of urban efficiency," noting Seattle has one of the country's most on-time airports, 50 miles of new bike lanes added in the last two years, more Wi-Fi hot spots and more coffee shops per capita than any other American city and short waits for a doctor's appointment. Also earning kudos was Seattle's innovative signal-optimization program, which synchronizes hundreds of traffic lights to allow more efficient travel and commuting.

Naturally, lists such as these are highly subjective and it's easy to manipulate data without necessarily proving anything. For example, Seattleites may appreciate having a relatively low number of airline delays at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport given that it's not a hub like NYC's JFK or Chicago's O'Hare. But what about the fact that Sea-Tac (as it's more commonly known) is halfway between the two cities, and thus further from the city center than airports in many other urban areas. Similarly, Denver's airport is a whopping 25 miles from the city center, but the city scored high on the list for other reasons, like having the most personal trainers per capita.

Portland, the #2-ranked city on this list, is enjoying an urban renaissance thanks to its pedestrian friendliness, investments in mass transit, bicycle culture and the rise of street-food vendors in neighborhoods throughout the city. But the Rose City is merely a drop in the bucket when compared to the rail-based services of New York, Chicago, Boston or Washington, DC. Portland has been investing a lot over the last three decades because its MAX line only dates back that far. More importantly, for all of Portland's it-city popularity, the city has suffered some of the Great Recession's highest unemployment rates. Maybe traffic is easier and fewer people are in line at the airport because they don't have jobs.

There are also at least five cities on the list that are notorious for their sprawl, which is the ultimate urban time-killer: Atlanta, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas and Los Angeles.

"Atlanta makes up for bad traffic with the shortest wait to get a doctor's appointment of all the cities in our survey, a progressive recycling program, and abundant community gardens," Bluestein notes cheerfully. But how do recycling and the abundance of gardens help one save time, especially when it takes more than an hour to make your way across the city?

Dallas, similarly, is forgiven for its sprawling city plan "with fast emergency services, a 24-hour 311 hotline, a single-stream curbside recycling program, and a seven-year plan to double the size of its rapid-transit system." Does a 311 hotline and transit in 2017 make life faster in a culture where people traditionally speak with a famously slow drawl?

It's not to say that Real Simple's time-saving cities list is wrong. It is easier to get around in Portland and Seattle than most big urban metropolises, and the magazine has created a conversation piece in its matrix of doctor's office waiting room times, mass transit investments, personal trainers per capita, recycling rates -- a virtual how-to guide for a healthy overall lifestyle. Even so, one can grant a native New Yorker a little gimme-a-break cynicism if asked to adopt the phrase "Seattle minute".

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Living Modern Like a 'Single Man' in L.A.

Brian Libby — 2010-02-22T17:03:00 00:00

Filed under: Design

When the Academy Awards take place on March 7, English actor Colin Firth will be one of the chosen few at Hollywood's Kodak Theater nominated for a major award: Best Actor, for his role in "A Single Man."

While Firth is unquestionably the heart of the movie, and Julianne Moore is his most visible co-star, a supporting-role nod must go to the mid-century modern house in which Firth's character, a college professor grieving for his deceased love in early-1960s Los Angeles, spends much of "A Single Man."

The movie is the directorial debut by legendary fashion designer Tom Ford, who clearly has an eye for visual detail. From the immaculately tailored Kennedy-era suits George (Firth) wears to the vintage Mercedes he drives, "A Single Man" is a visual delight, which provides a fanciful ballast against the movie's morose subject matter.

George's home is supposed to be in Santa Monica near the ocean, but the real house, designed by architect John Lautner, is nestled in the Whiting Woods area of Glendale northeast of the city.

As it happens, the house is for sale, listed at $1,495,000. The listing reads:

Hidden in a wooded valley at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains, the redwood, concrete & glass residence opens to the oak forest that influenced the form and orientation of the design. A meticulous restoration of systems, as well as surfaces, hardware & appliances has been completed. This published, world class architectural treasure incorporates open plan living, dining and den areas, two bedrooms, one & a half baths, laundry and attached two carport. In nature and apart, yet just 15 minutes to downtown Los Angeles.

Lautner (1911-94) was one of America's foremost 20th-century architects, particularly when it comes to the legacy of Southern California modernism. He spent six years as an apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright, joining the first group of Taliesin Fellows. In 1937 he supervised construction for two of Wright's projects, afterward establishing his own practice in Los Angeles. Lautner's first solo project was a house for his own family, which architectural critic Henry-Russell Hitchcock called "the best house by an architect under 30 in the United States." Later Hitchcock remarked that "Lautner's work could stand comparison with that of his master."

Some of his other residences besides the one featured in "A Single Man" have looked particularly futuristic, almost like flying saucers. One house he designed in Palm Springs, the Elrod Residence, was used in the 1971 James Bond film "Diamonds Are Forever". A more famous Lautner design, the Chemosphere, has been featured in numerous movies, from "Charlie's Angels" to "Body Double", as well as the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

In "A Single Man," the house serves as a metaphor for the openness that George both needs and shuns. Like most modernist homes, it is teeming with glass and transparency - both for better and worse. The light permeating such houses was decades ahead of its time, given how today's houses put a premium on natural illumination and transitional indoor-outdoor spaces. But it also means you're living right out in the open. In one scene from early in the movie, George cringes as next door neighbors wave to him from outside--as he is sitting on the toilet.

Modernism occupies only a relatively small fraction of the overall market for single-family homes. But the form has a stronger presence in Southern California. "Modernism is the perfect style for Southern California living because it is compatible with our way of life," reads the SoCal Modern Web site. "Modern homes are open, characterized by a freedom from confinement and a strong connection to the outdoors. Even though modern architecture was born in the cold, gray climate of Bauhaus Germany and de Stijl Holland, it has flourished in the warm weather of Southern California, where its inherent openness and abstract language make more sense. The barriers between indoors and outdoors are minimal, and people live in much closer contact with nature." An entire scene in the documentary film "Los Angeles Plays Itself" is devoted to the use of modern architecture in the movies.

Modern houses have long had an over-sized presence in TV and movies, not just because they may be favored by directors and producers but because they read well on the screen. "Things that are beautiful aren't necessarily filmable," Hollywood location scout Beth Milnick once told me for a Metropolis magazine story about architecture in film in television. "There's an elegant simplicity in most great locations."

When the winner for Best Actor is announced, Firth will have his hands full competing for the statuette with heavyweight thespians like Jeff Bridges and Morgan Freeman. But if the Oscar was based on which stylistic movie world one would most like to live inside, Firth would certainly be the one to walk away with the prize.

Related:

Mid-Century for Sale [HW]

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Vancouver's Olympic-Sized Billion Dollar Burden

Brian Libby — 2010-02-16T17:53:00 00:00

Filed under: Design,News

In Vancouver, as in other Pacific Northwest cities like Seattle and Portland, sustainability is an overriding principal for architecture and urban planning. So it was with pride that the city's Olympic organizing officials crafted a public-private partnership in which an inner-city, former industrial zone became not only the site for the Olympic Village -- housing for more than 2,700 Olympic athletes during the during the games in sustainably constructed buildings -- but a laudable mix of market-rate condos and subsidized affordable housing afterward. Given how such recovery of inner city land reduces the need for sprawl at the edges of the Vancouver metro area, the development actually embodies all three components of the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra.

The Olympic Village, once the games are completed, will give way to what's being called the Millennium Water development, featuring about 1,100 units, 250 of which will be set aside available for low-income households, and 120 for rentals. The buildings are targeted to save up to 50 percent on energy (versus code), while up to 70% of electricity needs are provided by an innovative system that recovers heat from sewage.

The waterfront condos are winning high praise from Olympic athletes, who are not used to having such cushy housing; most units have high-end finishes such as marble countertops, as well as expansive views of the downtown skyline and distant snowcapped mountains. "It's blown us away, to be honest," American speedskater Chad Hedrick told Time magazine. "They really went big on this. It's a million-dollar view, for sure."Located along Vancouver's SkyTrain transit line and adjacent to downtown, living in a post-Olympic Village condo would give future residents a front row seat for one of the most vibrant and livable cities in North America. Vancouver is inherently Canadian, polite and well mannered. But it is an urban crossroads of numerous other cultures, a more diverse city than most Canadian metropolises. Over the last decade, a forest of tall, thin condo towers have added enough density to help Vancouver pass that crucial urban tipping point wherein there becomes a reliable array of restaurants and shops along every major avenue.

At the same time, the development-conceived during the economic boom and opened amidst an historic recession-has been controversial given its cost to the city of Vancouver. The city planned to invest about $47 million in the project back in 2006. But by early 2009, new Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson conceded that the city (and angry taxpayers) would be responsible for a $1 billion project, thanks to a combination of cost overruns and the impact of the recession. The city had to bail out the private developers financing the project. Some people now fear that the city will be forced to put the low-income and rental units on the market to refill its coffers.

What are these units going for? A recent look at the website for local realtor Imran Ali of Sutton West Coast Realty, found a two-bedroom, two-bath condo in the 1661 Ontario building had sold for $752,521. On another site for Parker Realty, a 1,189 square foot unit in the same building, also with two bedrooms and two baths, was going for $1,042,721. According to an analysis by Vancouver real estate professional Maggie Chandler of Chandler Realty, the most expensive listing is $1,590,000 for a 1,225 square foot penthouse and the least expensive is a $319,000 studio.

Some of these units could ultimately go for less than that given the pressure on the city to make sales. At the same time, Vancouver condo prices were up 15% in January 2010 compared to the same period a year earlier. And given that the Olympic Village is centrally located on potentially prime riverfront property, the ensuing condo developments needn't necessarily be seen as boondoggle. Millennium Water and comparable post-Olympics developments are part of a holistic effort to stitch together the places where Vancouverites live, work and play.

In its vision for South East False Creek, for example, the city describes the neighborhood as:

...as a community in which people live, work, play and learn in a neighbourhood that has been designed to maintain and balance the highest possible levels of social equity, livability, ecological health and economic prosperity, so as to support their choices to live in a sustainable manner. SEFC will be a mixed-use community, with a focus on residential use, developed at the highest density possible while meeting livability and sustainability objectives. This complete community will ensure goods and services within walking distance and housing that is linked by transit and in proximity to local jobs.

Regardless of whether this is a boom or bust period, Vancouver has long demonstrated that having a healthy city is the key to long-term value for homes and communities.

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