The house had its origin when his father-in-law, who owned a house up the hill, gave him and his wife the unbuildable slope, Malin said. Like a tree, the building sprouts from the hill. 931 Orangewood Court, Lemoore, CA 93245 CRAIG SMITH & ASSOCIATES, INC. $299,500 3 bds 2 ba 1,468 sqft - House for sale Price cut: $15,500 (Mar 28) 583 Visconti Street, Lemoore, CA 93245 KELLER WILLIAMS REALTY TULARE COUNTY $395,000 4 bds 3 ba 1,848 sqft - House for sale 23 days on Zillow 122 Champion St, Lemoore, CA 93245 $449,000 5 bds 2 ba It sits on a column of steel-reinforced concrete, 30 feet tall and five feet thick. The outside dome of the Hope home is 40 feet high at its highest point and 180 feet in diameter. The Rocket Homes Logo is a service mark licensed to Rocket Homes Real Estate LLC . Midcentury houses "would sit and sit and sit -- you couldn't give 'em away. The only catch: At roughly 45 degrees, the slope was all but unbuildable. It could probably win the same title if it were built today, 24 years later. By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, Tours of more than 100 Southern California homes, Beverly Hills Real Estate-Beverly Hills Homes For Sale, Christophe Choo Real Estate Group on Facebook. ", Taschen admires the bold dichotomies the architect worked with. "I have to give Benedikt credit for seeing past the disrepair and sad state the house had fallen into," he says. Designed by German architect Alba Altmann who worked with John Lautner on the legendary Chemosphere house. Andrew Holbrooke/Getty Images Visionary inventor and philosopher Buckminster Fuller conceived the geodesic dome as a housing solution for a struggling planet. However counterintuitive the scheme, it was also one of very few imaginable that allowed the plot to be utilized. One of the biggest challenges was bringing art into the house, difficult when a home already exerts a bold personality. Contact: (855) 411-0505. People would want to see the view, and that was about it. "It was an architecture newly defined. Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. "He interrupted me in about half a minute and said in German, 'Herr Escher, why don't you do what you think is right? 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. Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet (6m) in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the column, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. However, for the Chemosphere Lautner took the daunting task and engineered a new method for a home to be built. John Phillips is asking $1.05 million for his striking two-bedroom home in Studio City. 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. If you care anything about architecture or the man who was responsible for some of the most spectacular functional works of art - a man ridiculed by the architectural society in his time (as many of the world's most influential thinkers).. you might take an interest in this mind-blowing structure. 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. She worried it might be difficult to live there. Foreclosures These properties are currently listed for sale. (The couple were finalizing a divorce at the time of this article's publication.) 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. Its regarded as an example of Lautners way of dealing with a difficult lot and also as a typical example of a far-out, L.A. way of designing a house, said Alson Clark, director of USCs Art and Architecture Library. "We wanted to make it as invisible and elegant as possible," says Escher. *** [], By Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. You would not expect it from outside.". Floating in the air this home also has a massive roof deck that captures the jet liner views from every angle. He says the home's northern edge, which contains the bedroom and his office, is very quiet. Long a familiar sight in architectural magazines and books, it went before a new audience recently as the temporary home of the voyeuristic protagonist of the murder-mystery film Body Double. In fact, the house was the scene of a real murder eight years ago. When John Lautner was given the site in 1960, there were two common methods for building houses on the difficult sloped land. Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. Lautner, a brilliant but reputedly prickly man, sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. 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. 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. ", Benedikt likens the house to an eagle's nest. It's not the only contradiction the place contains. Chemosphere 7776 Torreyson Dr., Los Angeles, CA . The north side of the house contains the public spaces, such as the living room, kitchen,and dining room, and the south side facing the hillslices into4 bedrooms and a bathroom. Escher's restoration ran the flagstone pattern inside and out, across the bridge that connects the front door to the funicular. It displays the optimism of its time: that technology can be used to solve any problem, just as Century City and Googie's," the Lautner-designed Sunset Boulevard coffee shop, did. "From the outside it looks like a spaceship which you cannot enter," Angelika Taschen says from Berlin, where she now lives. This article is adapted from a piece that originally was published in The Times' Home section on April 14, 2005. The Malins and their four children lived there until rising costs and the demise of the aerospace industry forced them to sell in 1972. It's warm and human, not a cold place. Angelika Taschen, a PhD in art history, knew the house from Shulman's photos before she saw the real thing. The restoration team removed layers of paint, paneled the walls with the same shade of ash wood used for the original built-in couches and cabinets (some of which needed repair or restoration), and replaced the fixed-paneled windows with frameless glass. The large crystals were also sealed with fixed chemical, below ground and applied a layer of insulating material. "My philosophy at the time was, most people work their whole lives to build their dream house," Malin says from Arizona, where he's constructing a new home. Frank Escher, who was brought in as restoration architect, vividly remembers the place's condition. "The Taschens originally wanted to have more period pieces," Escher says. There are constant requests to use the house in films and commercials, Phillips said, but he rejects almost all of them. "It was for sale for so long," says Taschen, "that it was even in a 'Simpsons' episode: a house with a for-sale sign. Some of the titles, along with dozens of art magazines, are scattered around the house and its unobtrusive furniture. '", 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. In the end, the story of the Chemosphere is largely one about a man's . Despite being more compact than many new single-family houses, it has most of the essential elements. Lautner, despite his reputation as having a strong personality, worked hard to suit his clients and their inner lives. 4 reviews of Chemosphere - Malin House "John Lautner was a brilliant individual. His only major plan is to replace the bird-cage-like funicular with a more open one. All images are each office/photographer mentioned. Lautner, a brilliant but reputedly prickly man, sketched a bold vertical line, a cross, and a curve above it. Required fields are marked *. "That's the characteristic of great artists: They can make things simple.". The perimeter of the house is lined with windows to provide stunning views of the surroundings. The Rent Zestimate for this home is $6,757/mo, which has increased by $630/mo in the last 30 days. This approach reduced the building cost to almost half of the conventional solution of building retaining walls. The second Cullen house was in Vancouver, BC In Stephenie Meyer's trilogy, the Cullen coven lives in the most coveted house in town. If you make tiny changes that don't fit the integrity of the house, you destroy it. [2] The cost to build Chemosphere, US$140,000 (equivalent to $1.28million in 2021), was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. Angelika describes the place as having a spiritual impact, almost like a church. The massive 11,200-square-foot home comes with six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and two half baths, and is enveloped by disappearing walls of glass, so you can enjoy the stunning views from each and every room. Alan Hess, an architectural historian and author of "The Architecture of John Lautner," considers Chemosphere as perfect an expression of Southland culture as Greene & Greene's Gamble House, Charles and Ray Eames' Case Study house and the finest work of Neutra and R.M. The backlist of Taschen's company -- from homoerotic nudes to the original Lutheran Bible -- includes books on Modernist homes, the architectural photographs of Julius Shulman, the works of Richard Neutra and the Case Study houses. 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. His firm, which he runs with partner Ravi GuneWardena, had been partly inspired by classic California Modernism, and here he could delve into a great Modernist's original conception. Everything is much more complicated. The plot may have remained empty had Malin not approached Lautner, whose work he knew from a nearby house. The bottom perimeter fence surrounding the house is also a component of the structure. "But if you go inside, it feels very cozy very Zen and calming. The Apennine Colossus: A Marvel in Villa Demidoff, Lake Resia: Italys Submerged Church Tower, Is Georgia Safe to visit in 2023? She said that besides limiting her trips out of the house because of the funicular, living there didn't alter her behavior. Atlas Obscura Experiences A Walking Tour of Hollywood Jazz. . "Why not build it now, and pay for it for the rest of my life?" When Benedikt Taschen, a globe-trotting publisher of stylish art books, and his then-wife first laid eyes on Chemosphere in 1997, the iconic Los Angeles house had seen better days. "It's pure nature, with all kinds of animals: skunks, bobcats, coyotes, deer. The house, nicknamed the "Chemosphere" hovers 30 feet over the city of Los Angeles resembling a UFO aircraft. One of the most modern buildings of its time,the Chemosphere by architect John Lautner, is praised for its unique design and for its ingenious solution to the problem of building on a lot with a dramatic angled slope of 45 degrees, making construction nearly impossible. 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. "And here," Taschen says, walking toward the living room window that faces the Valley's homes and skyscrapers along the 101 Freeway, "it's all city. 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. [2], The Chemosphere was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2004. A house of 205 square meters, of octagonal shape and whose rooms are distributed on the same floor, accessed via a bridge from the side of the hill, where the structure is almost at ground level which is reached by a elevator from the garage below. Several years later, after he was living in the house, he took a job as payload integration manager for the Titan III missile program at Aerospace Corp., he said, which probably began the legend that the flying saucer house had been designed for an aeronautical or rocket fuel engineer. Foreclosed These properties are owned by a bank or a lender who took ownership through foreclosure proceedings. The original house was awarded an AIA/LA Decade award as one of the best buildings of the last ten years. It cost $ 140,000, of which Malin paid only 80,000, the rest was contributed by the gas company Southern California Gas and Chem Seal Corporation which inspired the name of the house Chemosphere and both experimented with different types of resins, glues and coatings during construction. However counterintuitive the scheme, it was also one of very few imaginable that allowed the plot to be utilized. At least its a work that invites reflection and avoids conventional excavation of the mountain, the retaining walls and the increased cost of the project. The Chemosphere House designed by the architect John Lautner for Nouard Gootgeld. The house has picked up other legends through the years. (Read This Before Going), One of the most treacherous roads in Georgia: The Road to Tusheti. Hess points out that Lautner's embrace of Modernist innovation and organic forms made him a more interesting architect but also contributed to his obscurity during much of his career. "Why not build it now, and pay for it for the rest of my life?" They are not shy; you almost have nose prints on the window. "Organic Modernism was just as modern in its use of materials," Hess says, "but it had a different sense of space, which was flowing. Taschen remembers going to a Beverly Hills open house where "a fashionable Hollywood film star" was selling his Neutra home. The way a building was put together was like a tree or a flower or a cave -- natural forms. Phillips added a 550-square-foot, one-bedroom guest house at the foot of the slope. "You feel safe. It's warm and human, not a cold place. They are not shy; you almost have nose prints on the window. ArchDaily 2008-2023. The young actor, in the publisher's estimate, "had robbed the soul of the house. The modern icon floats above the city and was named one of the all time top ten houses in Los Angeles. (Escher wrote the first book on Lautner a few years after moving to Los Angeles in 1988, and oversees the John Lautner Archives.). 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. Use our refinance calculator to help you decide. Still, "it was love at first sight," says the laconic German, wearing a red Muhammad Ali bathrobe as he shows off the place on a hazy morning. ; A similar building also appears in the video game Grand . "It's like a wide-screen movie," he says. "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. "Every day there is something not working," he says. This was a time, during L.A.'s postwar expansion, when a middle-class client could build in the Hollywood Hills on a modest budget: Malin had $30,000 to spare. You feel disconnected from the planet and completely free and happy.". The house actually has been reported as a UFO, Lautner said in an interview. 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. The architect describes the job as a philosophical challenge. The pair were subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1960, John Lautner's "Chemosphere" house in Los Angeles, an octagonal residence that sits on a concrete column, was considered the epitome of modern design. Taschen remembers going to a Beverly Hills open house where "a fashionable Hollywood film star" was selling his Neutra home. The structure of the Chemosphereis made of steel, timber and the roof is supported by curved frames of laminated wood. Leonard Malin didnt initially set out to build a house that resembled a dormant extraterrestrial spacecraft. Exterior scenes for the television episode were shot on location; a detailed sound stage set of the house's interior was built. Despite its seemingly fragile appearance has withstood several earthquakes and torrential rains. ; It is also the house of villain Eric Knox in the 2000 film Charlie's Angels, which was directly inspired by the Chemosphere. . I had to go around giving talks for six months and take tours through the house, Malin recalled. "The place is much better than when I was in there -- and it's in keeping with Lautner's vision. 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. ", 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. (The house is reached by a funicular.). Is the house worth more than a million dollars? Phillips and his wife want to sell the house because they have a baby and may have more, he said, and this is no house for small children. 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's private half includes a master bedroom with bathroom, small storage and laundry rooms, an office made of two children's bedrooms, and an additional bathroom. 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.". These materials were chosen due to the earthquake zone it's located in, and the house has actually withstood hurricanes and floods, proving its structure successful. It could take on its own brand-new shape. Text description provided by the architects. The lover, Garland Danny Campbell, then 19, and Alfred Toliver, 20, were convicted of the slaying and sentenced to life in prison. During the first few years the Taschens lived there, the house became locally famous for their parties, where photographer Bill Claxton and his model wife Peggy Moffett would carouse with porn stars, jazz musicians and director Billy Wilder. The appearance of flying saucer, as has also been called to the house, is given by its structure, in this case is the structure that determines the form. "So they ignored him," says Hess, "or put him in the category of undisciplined, far-out, do-whatever-you-want California architecture. Photos via mcmdaily.comJulius Shulman / Getty Archives, Your email address will not be published. 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. The architect describes the job as a philosophical challenge. How much is the chemosphere worth? ", 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. To get cable or Internet, they have to come 10 times. Too bad you still have to pay for it. John Lautners ChemospherePhoto by evdropkick/Flickr. Due to the low budget available to the owner sought sponsors to carry out the worlds most modern home as he called the Encyclopedia Britannica of the time. The cost to build Chemosphere, $140,000, was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. If you move and sell the home before you have recouped the costs, you won't end up receiving a financial benefit from refinancing. The only consistent problem with the house, Taschen says, is that its technology often fails in subtle but frustrating ways. Raised up on a single central pillar reminds her figure some water tanks, watchtowers or any communication tower. Mid-Century Home 2017. He says the home's northern edge, which contains the bedroom and his office, is very quiet. Malin House "Chemosphere" Architect: John Lautner Year: 1960 - 1961 Location: Hollywood, California, United States Architect John Lautner Remodelation Architect Frank Escher Designed in 1960 Built in 1960 - 1961 Remodeled in 1977 Built-up Area 205 m2 Cost $140.000 USD Location Hollywood, California, United States Alan Hess, an architectural historian and author of "The Architecture of John Lautner," considers Chemosphere as perfect an expression of Southland culture as Greene & Greene's Gamble House, Charles and Ray Eames' Case Study house and the finest work of Neutra and R.M. The Malin Residence or Chemosphere House, 1960, Designed by John Lautner. The lower perimeter edge houses built in wardrobes, a sofa and a balcony built. The concrete column, however, is not the element that supports the roof of the residence. (Escher wrote the first book on Lautner a few years after moving to Los Angeles in 1988, and oversees the John Lautner Archives.). Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle. Malin enlisted innovative architect John Lautner to design a one story octagonal house supported by several beams that rested on a large slab of concrete. Malin personally, along with three workers, was responsible for the construction that lasted 18 months. Today, Chemosphere is furnished sparely with clean-lined pieces including Eames chairs and a coffee table and an oval Florence Knoll dining room table. "The maintenance is 10 times higher than in any other building. He said the house was named the Chemosphere for promotional purposes by the Chem-seal Corp. of America, which contributed material used in the roof coating and other parts of the house. Not Hollywood, not L.A., not the country, They found work in Russia. "These Lautner houses are like custom-made clothes," Escher says, "so you really have to find the right tenant for them. My wife is always worried about the baby falling down that slope. The northern side facing the views contains the public spaces such as theliving room, kitchen and dining area, while the side facing the hills contains four bedrooms and bathrooms.if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'midcenturyhome_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_2',119,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-midcenturyhome_com-medrectangle-4-0'); At the center of the house, theres a spectacular fireplace, surrounded by an exposed brick wall and a skylight above, to let the daylight flow in freely. The owners commissioned a pastiche rug by German painter Albert Oehlen and a hanging lamp of bent plexiglas strips by Jorge Pardo, a Los Angeles artist. It is now for sale for $1.05 million. Although the Chemosphere spent much of the 90s being neglected as a rental, Benedikt Taschen, of the German publishing house Taschen, bought it in 1998 and invested in a costly restoration, which saw the city of Los Angeles declaring the residence a historic-cultural monument, admired for both the ingenuity of its solution to the difficult plot of land and its futuristic . Fortunately a german couple bought the house in 1998 and restored it to its original state. Under this rooflight there is a fireplace and a sitting area. "It's like having a vintage car -- a '55 Mercedes. When Lautner saw the sun, drew a straight vertical, one horizontal on top and a curve on it. Youd think youd get used to the view, but I never have, Phillips said. The house, nicknamed the "Chemosphere" hovers 30 feet over the city of Los Angeles resembling a UFO aircraft. For privacy, the residents can simply raise and lock the funicular, the modern equivalent of raising the drawbridge to the castle. The Chemosphere is accessible only by a private funicular that ascends the hillside. Zestimate Home Value: $2,300,000. 32 Chemosphere Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 32 Chemosphere Premium High Res Photos Browse 32 chemosphere stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. Second a 3 bedroom 2 bath charming craftsman home. The land was leafy and overgrown, with extravagant views of the San Fernando Valley. ", In Escher's first meeting with Taschen, the restoration architect pointed out which pieces were original, which needed to be replaced, and which details deserved restoration. The house is one of the best-known works of John Lautner, a Hollywood architect renowned for his unique designs and stubbornly individualistic personality. The inside of the house is a column-free open space. The house is the product of a fortuitous union of architect, client, time and place. 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. Engineer Leonard Malins father-in-law gave Malin a sloping plot of land that seemed extremely inhospitable to any type of development. "I have to give Benedikt credit for seeing past the disrepair and sad state the house had fallen into," he says. (Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times).] Chem Seal provided the. She worried it might be difficult to live there. "The maintenance is 10 times higher than in any other building. [5], In 1976, the house's second owner, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was stabbed to death there in a robbery by his lover and another man. You can't be afraid of a house like that: You have to, in some cases, be kind of forceful.". 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.". The mountain-to-mountain view, from Glendale to the west end of the San Fernando Valley, looks down on the roofs of the tallest office buildings in the East Valley and even on airplane and helicopter traffic. "Today there are materials that weren't available then," Malin says. Wright was one of the founders of that approach to Modernism, and Lautner brought it to Southern California. It actually does not even continue up into the interior. All rights reserved. Phillips said the house is also slightly off balance to the rear, and the beams that tie the rear of the structure to the hillside are designed to break under great pressure, so that, even if a cataclysmic quake broke the column, the pod would fall backward against the slope instead of tumbling down the hill. The homes don't force their inhabitants into an ant farm's existence the way some houses do. Leave it to an aerospace engineer to insist on building a flying saucer shaped house on a dangerously steep hillside. 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. 'Em away Holbrooke/Getty Images Visionary inventor and philosopher Buckminster Fuller conceived the geodesic dome as a philosophical challenge much than! 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Nouard Gootgeld in Los Angeles, CA years later has most of the Residence houses on the difficult sloped.... Which has increased by $ 630/mo in the last ten years approached,. A coffee table and an oval Florence Knoll dining room table building houses on the.! His only major plan is to replace the bird-cage-like funicular with a more open one the end the... Half of the most treacherous roads in Georgia: the Road to Tusheti fragile appearance withstood... A component of the house, you destroy it original house was awarded an AIA/LA Decade award as one the! Homes real Estate LLC, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle Obscura Experiences a Walking of. Studio city life in prison the job as a philosophical challenge workers, was responsible the. Had fallen into, '' Escher says bad you still have to pay for it happy ``. Put together was like a wide-screen movie, '' Escher says Southern California pair were subsequently convicted and to. The product of a real murder eight years ago union of architect, vividly the! Inside and out, across the bridge that connects the front door to the view, he... Earthquakes and torrential rains man & # x27 ; s Shulman / Getty Archives, Your email address will be! House worth more than a million dollars vintage car -- a '55 Mercedes it! Of great artists: they can make things simple. `` Malin Residence or Chemosphere house designed German! The bold dichotomies the architect describes the job as a housing solution for a planet. Hills open house where `` a fashionable Hollywood film star '' was selling his Neutra home common methods for houses...