Thursday, June 14, 2007

UP MULHOLLAND WHERE I MADE THE SCENE, LIKE THE ONE THAT TOOK LITTLE JIMMY DEAN: As some of you know already, after eight or nine or four or less than two years, depending upon which of us you're asking, the Spacefamily is pulling up stakes and moving north to the East Bay, where the adults will commute into San Francisco. Those of you who have endured my pro-LA rants -- first as a commenter, then as an assistant superintendent of this blog -- can anticipate that this is a little strange for me. As Spacewoman pointed out, this is the longest I've lived consecutively in one city. So while I still consider myself a Seattleite at heart, I do feel at least in part -- the part that became an adult, became very good at his job, married an awesome woman, watched two wonderful kids born, bought a house, and got TiVo and HDTV -- an Angelino. Unlike most of the people who leave LA, I love it dearly, and there are many things I will miss: the 320 days of sunshine and corresponding 90-degree Januaries, the Z-list celeb sightings, the daytime nontourist leisure vibrancy, the Hot Girl ATM at Beverly and San Vicente, and so many other things. I'm sure the things I'll miss far outnumber the things I won't.

On a related note, a few months back, I posted my list (proven incomplete in the comments) of the most architecturally-significant houses in the US, and I mentioned that a disproportionately high number of them are in LA. At the time, I knew I would be leaving soon, and I took it as a sign of a flaw in my character that I had never even tried to see a number of these houses (as I mentioned, I had been in the Gamble and Blacker Houses). To cure this, I grabbed my camera and a Thomas Guide and set out in search of the list.

As it turns out, it's not as easy as I thought it would be. I don't want to bore you with technical jargon, but here in LA we have a term for wandering uninvited onto rich people's property to take pictures of their private stuff: trespassing (or alternatively, Martin Lawrence). So I was limited to houses that were (a) visible from the street; or (b) disinterestedly guarded. Here's what I found, with photographic evidence.

As I mentioned before, Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis-Brown House is in bad shape. When you drive up right below it, it basically looks like it's about to slide right down on top of you. In the picture, you can see that just about every Froebel block is disintegrating. It doesn't look much better from the front of the house, and the cheaply-made iron gate and plywood barrier aren't helping. The saddest thing is that I think this is doomed either to a transformative restoration that junks the original materials or a permanent renovation (like Sagrada Familia) because the materials just weren't engineered for permanence.

Pierre Koenig's Case Study House # 22, the house of the iconic Julius Schulman portrait, was tough. I found it on the map pretty easily, but when I got there, the road was a private drive. When I got out of my car, hopped the gate, and walked up the road, there was nothing but a high plaster wall to greet me. I asked a local which one it was, and he pointed it out, but said that the owners don’t take kindly to trespassers (or Martin Lawrences). Since the house is on the leading edge of a half-circle bluff (which I confirmed by driving right underneath it) and I had a long lens, I thought I'd go over to the next hill and snap a picture. Easier said than done -- I ended up crossing one part of the hill on what must be the only unpaved road left in LA and later trying to execute a three-point turn in a narrow cul-de-sac graded at what must have been a 45-degree angle cutting the road diagonally. Eventually I found a few perches -- an open construction site that seriously messed with my acrophobia, and the fire exit of another house -- that gave me a relatively unobstructed view. I think I love this house -- its L-shape cleanly separates the enclosed private spaces (p.s. -- neat sculpture) from the wide-open public areas, and the view is stunning.

If Case Study # 22 played hard to get, Koenig's Case Study # 21 was kind of skanky-easy. It had just sold, but the buyer hadn't moved anything in, so the property was wide open. I walked around the whole thing, took pictures through all the windows, and accidentally stepped into one of the ponds. Frankly, while I love the catalog photos, in person this house is disappointing. A professional photographer can work magic, because in the light of day the house is kind of dingy. Worse yet, it's tiny. I guess an extraordinarily tidy ascetic could live there, but this works better in theory than in practice.

The last house I saw was John Lautner's Chemosphere. In a way, the directions to this house are simple: Go as high as you can in the Hollywood Hills, then look around and see if there's anything higher. If there is, you're not there yet. In another way, the directions are maddeningly confusing. Essentially, take a right on Torreyson, then a right on the other Torreyson, then a left on the other other Torreyson. Once you figure out where you're going, there's a lot of climbing. First, up the steep street it's on, where there wasn't any parking. Then you can take the funicular from the front gate to the house itself. If, however, you are not exactly supposed to be there and you don't want to draw attention to yourself, calling the funicular might be a bad idea. So there are a LOT of stairs. You are rewarded at the top, however, with a house that is much more likeable than its pictures convey. Most of the shots I've seen of this tend to emphasize the fact that it sits on a single stilt with the living area barely connected to the hillside, so you tend to see the structure (which looks a little like a palm tree clad in aluminum siding) and not the house itself. Up on top, it's completely different -- a very modern decking area (akin to a Palm Springs spa) connected to a mostly-open round room with a 270-degree view of the Valley. It's a little hard to convey exactly how on top of the world you feel up there, but that black building way down below in the picture is the 30-story (?) NBC Universal Tower. This house is probably pretty expensive and impractical to live in and a total bitch to sell, but I can see why somebody would buy it.

That's it. Goodbye, beautiful LA houses, I won't be living in you, but I'll miss you (and the one I did live in) just the same.

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