It is a privilege. A pilgrimage for me at this point. It goes like this:
It is very, very quiet. No cars. Just the sound of the wind. I am walking.
Extremely luscious jungle on a hill at the end of a very sinuous road. First you enter the courtyard and there’s that:
A perfect hoop within a perfect jungle. Next to it is a small, low-rise structure, the house itself:
You enter by the intriguing, diagonally cut wall on the left by the white car (note the diagonal continues in metal in the ground and joins a water drainage grille not on the picture.). And then you meet him, John Lautner:
A statue by a French artist. Perfect landscaping, always. Then you walk over a koi pond and you either see the dining/kitchen to the right:
Or you go straight and sit down in the quite famous living room:
No air conditioning. No fan. Gentle breeze from open glass doors. Perfect temperature. Birds and soft sound of water running from the fountain feeding the pond. The living room continues outside:
The sun is warm. The view is this:
Just breeze, silence and soft chatter in the back. No right angles, just diagonals, home comfort and luxuriant nature. There’s something so liberating yet so anchoring. It’s absurdly powerful to me. Flowing between rooms and spaces that are not square? You have to experience it to understand. It feels so good.
This is the second pool built recently and there’s a new sculpture garden going on down the jungle on the steep side of the hill.
The point is not that this house is outstanding, it is that outside of a few fancy things it’s just a matter of good design and taste. Plenty of custom things (diagonal wood flooring following the slope, for instance) can be done by owners themselves. Actually, the few hundreds mini-skylights on the concrete roof were made by one of the owner’s children! Planting plants and watering them is something anyone can do.
Built-ins and minimalism work well together, stand the test of time and this house is the best representation of that. The original house is small by today’s “standards” but it is a perfect size for human life.
I am fortunate to be in the city where this home exists and that I know some people. This house is still inspiring me and I’ll be back as many times as I can. Because every single time, I see new detail and under breath I’m like “gatdaaamn they carefully thought about this didn’t they”