a Contemporary Los Angeles Villa

A Con­tem­po­rary Los Ange­les villa by Michael Lehrer cap­tures the essence of the L.A. lifestyle.

This epic project was 13 years in the mak­ing. The own­ers, a retired busi­ness­man & sculp­tor, and his wife – a for­mer land­scape designer - wanted a light-filled dwelling that would feel as though it were part of the set­ting; a shel­tered piece of land replete with old-growth trees.

Lehrer took the idea of indoor/outdoor liv­ing so essen­tial to the L.A. lifestyle and inter­preted it in a three-story, 13,000-square-foot struc­ture with mas­sive slid­ing and piv­ot­ing glass walls.  Doors and win­dows con­vert indoor spaces into true open-air pavil­ions. The liv­ing room has six mov­able glass wall pan­els, stretch­ing 42 feet, which can be ganged in one stack, effec­tively mak­ing the room a part of the adja­cent gar­den ter­race.  A ground plane of Alham­bra lime­stone runs between indoors and out, its thresh­old nearly invisible.

You can see the beau­ti­ful gar­dens and trees wher­ever you are.  The house frames the land­scapes and allows nat­ural light in, and the inte­rior is sooth­ing and com­fort­able.  Not sur­pris­ingly, the own­ers love of stone is evi­dent throughout.

Alham­bra lime­stone from Walker Zanger extends from the liv­ing areas out onto a capa­cious ter­race shaded by a Chi­nese elm.

A gravel court­yard with a stately cork oak offers access to the res­i­dence on three sides; walls of glass, at left and right, flank a steel-troweled-stucco façade.

The sculp­ture stu­dio is faced with custom-made paneling.

Mas­sive flag­stones lead guests from the front gar­den into the din­ing room, which in turn leads to the liv­ing room and another gar­den beyond.

The horizontal-grain maple pan­el­ing and the kitchen’s cab­i­netry, stainless-steel hood, coun­ters, and sinks are all by Bulthaup, the cook­top is by Gagge­nau, and the ovens are by Wolf.  Bon­tempi Casa chairs sur­round a custom-made din­ing table.

Italian-onyx coun­ters and a maple vanity.

A tub with a pic­ture window.

 The indoor/outdoor shower, sur­faced in honed lime­stone and marble.

The mas­ter suite.

Another per­spec­tive on the mas­ter suite.