Escher's restoration ran the flagstone pattern inside and out, across the bridge that connects the front door to the funicular. ", "There was no market for that house," says Julie Jones, the Realtor in the sale, who had watched the place languish after she listed the house. It had been rented out for 10 to 12 years; it was like the ultimate party house. This innovative design was Lautner's solution to a site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically unbuildable. "I think the hardest thing was developing an intellectual strategy for how to deal with it," Escher says, calling the task, "a combination of research into history and technology, and to some degree into Lautner's psychology. Frank Gehry has said that as a student, he considered Lautner to be a god.". Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. The forcefulness was balanced with the architects' own "sensitive and careful" respect for Lautner's intentions: The goal was to undo the damage previous tenants had exacted, and to simplify. For such an intricately designed home, the downside of high maintenance caused the original owner Leonard Malin to sell the house in 1972 which subsequently was left to run down. Malin personally, along with three workers, was responsible for the construction that lasted 18 months. But wherever we move to next is going to be a comedown after this.. One of the most modern buildings of it's time, the Chemosphere by architect John Lautner, is praised for it's unique design and for it's ingenious solution to the problem of building on a lot with a dramatic angled slope of 45 degrees, making construction nearly impossible. Today, it still has a reputation as a party house under Taschen's ownership. Chem Seal provided the experimental coatings and resins to put the house together and inspired the name Chemosphere. Foreclosed These properties are owned by a bank or a lender who took ownership through foreclosure proceedings. "It's the responsibility of the owner to preserve it for future generations," Taschen says, "because a house like this doesn't belong to one or two people: It belongs to mankind.". Schindler. Taschen remembers going to a Beverly Hills open house where "a fashionable Hollywood film star" was selling his Neutra home. Taschen was perfect for the house -- he immediately grasped what the house was about, and he was entirely open to our ideas for the place, like ripping out the glass and commissioning pieces by artists.". It's warm and human, not a cold place. In 1976, the house's second owner, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was stabbed to death in a robbery by two men, who were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. ", Benedikt likens the house to an eagle's nest. The young actor, in the publisher's estimate, "had robbed the soul of the house. This home, built in 1960 may be the solution to a construction in steep terrain, slope of 45 degrees, hardly accessible, leaving almost intact the surrounding landscape and environmental impact. Portions 2009 Bring the Blog, LLC and used with permission. (The couple were finalizing a divorce at the time of this article's publication.) (Lautner originally wanted to call the house Chapiteau. (Read This Before Going), One of the most treacherous roads in Georgia: The Road to Tusheti. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $6,757/mo, which has increased by $630/mo in the last 30 days. the magnificent location of the house, located between the countryside and the city. But they have a personality to them, ya? Lautner, a brilliant but reputedly prickly man, sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. During the 1950s and '60s, the starker, cooler Modernism of the Bauhaus and of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe reigned in intellectual circles, especially in Europe and on the East Coast. Under this rooflight there is a fireplace and a sitting area. Like a tree, the building sprouts from the hill. After the car is parked a private furnicular, or an inclined railway, ascends up the slope and lands at a narrow bridge which spans from the ground to the entrance near the kitchen. *** [], By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. The house, nicknamed the "Chemosphere" hovers 30 feet over the city of Los Angeles resembling a UFO aircraft. They are not shy; you almost have nose prints on the window. Everything is much more complicated. John Lautners ChemospherePhoto by evdropkick/Flickr. Real Estate Market Reports . Maybe because you are floating above the city, above reality in the sky. The forcefulness was balanced with the architects' own "sensitive and careful" respect for Lautner's intentions: The goal was to undo the damage previous tenants had exacted, and to simplify. The house, which looks like a UFO hedgehopping the Santa Monica Mountains above Studio City, has become a Los Angeles landmark and an internationally known architectural treasure. ; It is also the house of villain Eric Knox in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels, which was directly inspired by the Chemosphere. Though Lautner could appear imperious, a quality he may have learned from his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright, he was also a deeply practical and hard-headed problem-solver. The bequest, to be announced at a news conference at the house Wednesday afternoon, includes an endowment of $17 million for a maintenance fund, as well as a so-called skyspace artwork by James. Chemosphere was characteristically Los Angeles of that time because "it didn't have to look like a house," says Hess. 4 reviews of Chemosphere - Malin House "John Lautner was a brilliant individual. It's hard not to see the house, which sits on a 29-foot-high, 5-foot-wide concrete column over a long-considered-unbuildable Hollywood Hills site, as a hovering flying saucer or a prototype for the 23rd century architecture of "The Jetsons.". Frank Escher, who was brought in as restoration architect, vividly remembers the place's condition. 11 of 14 Venice Beach House by Frank Gehry Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG / Getty Images View Map Address 15 30th Ave, Venice, CA 90291-4378, USA Phone +1 310-823-1966 Web Visit website 12 of 14 Santa Monica: Frank Gehry Residence IK's World Trip/Flickr/CC BY 2.0 View Map The inside of the house is a column-free open space. As in many of his works John Lautner geometry used in this project, becoming an example of the architecture of the time in the Los Angeles, where a house had no reason to pretend to be. The client, however, had a small budget (only $30,000) so Lautner instead took advantage of the client's extensive imagination and rejected both structural methods for one that would cost about half of the conventional solution with retaining walls and land drains. "But if you go inside, it feels very cozy very Zen and calming. "Organic Modernism was just as modern in its use of materials," Hess says, "but it had a different sense of space, which was flowing. However, for the Chemosphere Lautner took the daunting task and engineered a new method for a home to be built. "It was an architecture newly defined. "It was for sale for so long," says Taschen, "that it was even in a 'Simpsons' episode: a house with a for-sale sign. In addition, we feature unusual hotels and restaurants. The cost to build Chemosphere, US$140,000 (equivalent to $1.28 million in 2021), was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. Midcentury houses "would sit and sit and sit -- you couldn't give 'em away. The modern icon floats above the city and was named one of the all time top ten houses in Los Angeles. The way a building was put together was like a tree or a flower or a cave -- natural forms. ", "There was no market for that house," says Julie Jones, the Realtor in the sale, who had watched the place languish after she listed the house. Landmark House: John Lautner's Chemosphere - Los A Should You Pay Your Mortgage Bi-Weekly? Steelstruts shoot out from the single column to support the floor of the house. When John Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for. "From the outside it looks like a spaceship which you cannot enter," Angelika Taschen says from Berlin, where she now lives. "Every day there is something not working," he says. The architect describes the job as a philosophical challenge. Fortunately, Taschen had the resources and respect for the Chemosphere's ingenuity to restore it to its original vision. 33 Chemosphere House Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 33 Chemosphere House Premium High Res Photos Browse 33 chemosphere house photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more photos and images. The upper structure is constructed with laminated beams subjected to a compression ring in the central steel upper platform deck and all eight arms rests on steel on a single supporting concrete pillar diameter of 6 meters and height 8.7. Lautner, a brilliant but reputedly prickly man, sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. It is a one-story octagon with around 2,200 square feet (200m2) of living space. Advertisement. How much is the chemosphere worth? Chem Seal provided the. The outside dome of the Hope home is 40 feet high at its highest point and 180 feet in diameter. He made an exception for Body Double because director Brian De Palma was very persuasive, and they offered me a lot of money--$30,000 for four days, and its all tax free because of the IRS code that you dont pay taxes on rental income of less than 14 days., He said he agreed only on condition that the movie makers not only treat the house well, but that the house not be the scene of any graphic sex or violence . Chemosphere was built in 1960 and became known for Lautner's innovative solution to the house's site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be unbuildable. It should disappear." The pair were subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison. When Leonard Malin first set out to build his iconic home, he only had $30,000 to spendwhich was a tiny construction budget, even by 1960s standards. The Chemosphere is accessible only by a private funicular that ascends the hillside. The house stands above a steep slope, mounted on a single concrete column, which appears to be all that keeps it from soaring away. "The West would not be possible without technology: Water, electricity, everything that it took to overcome dryness and distance was dependent in some form on technology. "I have to give Benedikt credit for seeing past the disrepair and sad state the house had fallen into," he says. Taschen commissioned the suspended lamps of bent plexiglass strips by Cuban-born L.A. artist Jorge Pardo and the pastiche rug designed by German painter Albert Oehlen. The typical way to approach it would have been to bulldoze out a lot and put in 30-foot-high retaining walls to try to hold up the mountain, which is just insane.. "And yet whenever that house is used in the movies, it's always a decadent bachelor pad," Hess says. [1][9] The recent restoration, by Escher GuneWardena Architecture, won an award from the Los Angeles Conservancy. It's like a movie where you add a scene of someone with a mobile phone in 1958, or a style of shirt or car that wouldn't have existed until years later. Le Corbusier called his homes "machines for living in," and sometimes they felt that way, with their narrow hallways and rigidly prescribed paths. "It was an architecture newly defined. All images are each office/photographer mentioned. His only major plan is to replace the bird-cage-like funicular with a more open one. ", Hess finds the house fascinating partly because it was built for a couple and their four children. If you make tiny changes that don't fit the integrity of the house, you destroy it. This edge zone, while accommodating storage, a seat and at one point a small terrace, has also a structural function. In the 1973 Sylmar quake, the house waved around about 2 1/2-feet on each side, but the only damage was a broken glass that fell off a counter, said Malin, who lived there at the time. [13] In 1996 the Chemosphere was represented as Troy McClure's (played by Phil Hartman) fictional Springfield hilltop mansion in The Simpsons TV series. We will show it to some people if they have an architectural background and write for an appointment in advance, he said, but they do not cater to gawkers. (The house is reached by a funicular.). Mid-Century Home 2017. It is now for sale for $1.05 million. The Chemosphere was first used as a futuristic residence in The Duplicate Man, a 1964 episode of the ABC TV-program The Outer Limits. '", For Escher, a native of Switzerland who loves the rational, structure-inspired work of Lautner, Neutra and the late Pierre Koenig, this was a gift from the gods. If he was a banker, he would have insisted on a colonial house on a bulldozed lot. Lautner, a former student of Frank Lloyd Wright who sometimes designs swimming pools that wander through the living room or homes built around trees or rocks, is not the sort of architect who does colonial houses on bulldozed cuts. The transition to the outside is made through the edge detail. This article is adapted from a piece that originally was published in The Times' Home section on April 14, 2005. Exterior scenes for the television episode were shot on location; a detailed sound stage set of the house's interior was built. Rocket Homes is a registered trademark licensed to Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC. Lautner didn't see the house as a flying saucer but as a sensible solution. Perfect for entertaining. Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users. The Chemosphere House designed by the architect John Lautner for Nouard Gootgeld. What about criticism that it is more of an oddity than architectural pioneering, an ego trip for the designer that cost six times as much as other 2,200-square-foot houses built in the area at the same time? The weight of the 31-ton pad, and the earth compacted above it, hold the house up, like a barbell with one end buried in the earth. Angelika Taschen, a PhD in art history, knew the house from Shulman's photos before she saw the real thing. Chemosphere 7776 Torreyson Dr., Los Angeles, CA . The way a building was put together was like a tree or a flower or a cave -- natural forms. You feel disconnected from the planet and completely free and happy.". The Malin residence remains one of the state of Californias most eccentric buildings. The house, which looks like a UFO hedgehopping the Santa Monica Mountains above Studio City, has become a Los Angeles landmark and an internationally known architectural treasure. When I first came to Los Angeles and was driving along Mulholland Drive and saw it for the first time, I was just bowled over by it., He bought it some years later after an architect friend told me it was on the market.. You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! The lowest bid from a general contractor in 1957 was $525,000, so I quit work for 18 months and built it myself with John de la Vaux for $140,000. "So they ignored him," says Hess, "or put him in the category of undisciplined, far-out, do-whatever-you-want California architecture. The structure of the Chemosphereis made of steel, timber and the roof is supported by curved frames of laminated wood. ", Taschen says it's hard to get bored with the place -- despite the rain this winter -- since the enormous windows offer an expansive view on the world. Here are 22 essential L.A. spots for every tourist, Column: We cant afford another writers strike. Although flying saucers were in fashion when it was designed in the late 1950s, that had nothing to do with the design, according to the architect. [2] The original decoration was provided by John H. Smith, the first African American admitted to the National Society of Interior Designers. ", Even out-of-state critics and scholars who could appreciate the sharply angular California Modernism of midcentury didn't know what to make of Lautner's merging of the modern with natural forms. Lautner perched the entire one-storyoctagon on a single 30-foot concrete column, leaving the natural surroundings untouched. [5] The plans were later cancelled due to fears the annex would visually compete with the main house. The Zestimate for this house is $2,033,400, which has increased by $13,100 in the last 30 days. Similarly, his 1968 "Elrod. The sleek, octagonal design, arguably the boldest work by the singular architect John Lautner, is considered a masterpiece of California Modernism and is beloved by cultists of midcentury design. "He interrupted me in about half a minute and said in German, 'Herr Escher, why don't you do what you think is right? However counterintuitive the scheme, it was also one of very few imaginable that allowed the plot to be utilized. The Chemosphere restoration won an award from the Los Angeles Conservancy as well as the approval of its original tenant. It could probably win the same title if it were built today, 24 years later. A wave movement, which is what an earthquake is, cracks up a conventional house at the corners.. Youd think youd get used to the view, but I never have, Phillips said. And because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the post, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. His fiance Mary (MaryBud) Faustina Roberts Lautner (1913 . All rights reserved. The Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC main office is located at Rocket Homes Real Estate, 701 Griswold St, Suite 21, Detroit, MI 48226. The only catch: At roughly 45 degrees, the slope was all but unbuildable. When John Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for building houses on the difficult sloped land. One of the biggest challenges was bringing art into the house, difficult when a home already exerts a bold personality. The original Twilight house sold in March, 2022 for a whopping $2,500,000 which amounts to $510/square foot. [1] Preservation architect Frank Escher wrote the first book on Lautner a few years after moving to Los Angeles in 1988, and oversees the John Lautner Archives. Leave it to an aerospace engineer to insist on building a flying saucer shaped house on a dangerously steep hillside. Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. The home sits on 6.2 acres and has 10 bedrooms and 13 baths. Body Double (1984). Lautner, despite his reputation as having a strong personality, worked hard to suit his clients and their inner lives. "It's like a wide-screen movie," he says. The Taschen, new owners of the Chemosphere in 1977, commissioned the house recovering after years of neglect, the architect Frank Escher who introduced details and finishes designed by Lautner at the time but at the time it was built were impossible performed either by budget or simply a lack of technology. [1] Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. 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