h. Play

I’m a John Lautner hoe. I can’t lie. I visited a few houses he’s made and they changed my life. We really all live in shoe boxes and it’s dumb.

Here comes the Wolff House that I was eyeing for a bit. It went for sale last year and a couple tours were organized. I hit up my special agent and she got me in.

John is a goddamn supreme master of volumes and mystery. From the street going up, you don’t fucking know anything about what’s going on in this “house”. But you know it has to be neat. You can just feel it in the detail, from the floating white ceiling to the brass-made balcony to the giant rock walls.

This is the carport. The entrance to the house is on the right, hiding. There’s more style in here than in the entire Gehry’s catalog. It’s strong yet light. It’s aggressive yet peaceful. I would take pictures all the time in there. Notice the little white camera that wasn’t supposed to be there. John would rip this shit off. John would be right.

It is a bachelor pad. It is not big. But boy, it’s sumptuous. Here some bad picture of the 16 feet doors (that you push like they weight less than a model on the runway) that open onto the balcony with its built-in bench. Absolutely wonderful. You feel extremely protected yet free. Love it.

Peep this! How the ceiling is cantilevered to oblivion (I mean, as far as technically and physically possible), floating over the rock walls. Having this light coming through a line, all along the house, is life-changing. It does make something thick and vertical a lot more open and airy. The recessed lighting looking like the one in the carport. The continuous wood line under it, underlining the ceiling and hiding more lighting… It’s smart as hell, brings unity in the house and ultimately, feels good to the human chilling inside said house.

So this is the view from the bedroom, under the living room. A level below is the small (but deep) pool. It’s cantilevered over the road. See the little concrete triangle? This was supposed to extend over the road, but the city of Angels said “uh, nah bruh”. John said “who do you think you are? I am! Let’s keep it but let’s make it rise”. The rest is History. It looks cool. It adds a little bit of privacy when soaking. John Lautner didn’t give a fuck.

Back to the balcony. When sitting on the built-in bench, this is what is in the corner. A built-in BBQ. Small, but the house is small too so stop hating, jeez Louise. It’s a detail but it’s really well designed and placed, smoke wise. D E T A I L

Well, I was taking notes. This glass is roughly thick like my finger. That is a seriously long sheet of glass though. *costs estimates happening*

Harold for the corner 3 above the road!.. BANG. (yes, there’s a little gap in the corner, I’m suing)

This goes to the guest house on the right and to the laundry room. This means that you have to use those stairs up and down to do laundry. Yikes. That shit is cool looking but you’re tipsy and you can die rather quickly. Split your head wide open on mean concrete steps. No railing, nothing to hold your ass. If you die, you die. John didn’t care about no kids or no pets.

Small, vertical. Lots of stairs to move around. Amazing feeling of shelter and protection without feeling like living in a cave.

If I could, I ‘d buy it and chill in there in winter when I feel like it. Just normal stuff.

I miss that place.

I was wondering why I didn’t play on the roof more often but then I remembered how sweaty I was holding a big ol’ bass amp in one hand while going up a ladder on a small balcony. Yeah, nope.

It was good though.

Yes, I visited it. It was great. Once again, this design is from 1927 and looks contemporary in 2020. I love it.

The Lovell House is very interesting in that it’s one if not the very first steel frame house in the whole country and one of the first with sprayed concrete. The frame was prefab and assembled on site in under 40 hours. That is absolutely amazing and even more if you consider that it was built in the middle age, in the early 1930s when everyone wanted Spanish and Italian-looking houses and mansions. Bold AF.

So,

– Revolutionary design and engineering

– Brand new aesthetic

– Built with health in mind: abundant windows for sunbathing, kitchen optimized for raw food diet, a pool for soaking and a yard with fruit and trees

This is totally my shit. I needed a chance to go and I got it last year.

Fine, my photos that day weren’t great. Just imagine that this is very quiet with birds sounds and great acoustics, thanks to the thick white carpet. It’s airy. You go down the stairs and arrive in this giant, soft living room. It feels just right. The breeze is cool and sweet with all those windows and trees outside. The chair on the right is original furniture from 1927 and it’s PRISTINE. I can’t believe how impeccable it was despite having kids and an entire family living in this house for 60 years.

It’s a simple house. There’s not much going on. The usual modern built-in stuff. The bedrooms all have outdoor patios to use as “sleeping porch”. There are quite a few outdoor-yet-private spaces and you know, it’s useful in the middle of summer in a heat wave while being horny. That house has probably seen some filth, is all I’m saying.

Those volumes fit perfectly in this little canyon and are fun. Anyway, it was amazing to tour this house but it was equally fantastic to meet the people who lived in here for the past sixty years. Betty Lou Topper raised five kids in this house and I met her and one of her son, Ken. Betty, 92, was in her wheelchair and insisted in saying hi to every single visitor.

I hold her hand and said “Hi, my name is Harold and I’m a designer. Thank you so much for having me here”. She replied with a wonderful smile, a little hi and a palpable excitement because well, I’m not too fugly. Ken was incredibly sweet and provided us stories of what was going on around when he was growing up there. How Neutra –the architect was a bit obsessed with the house and would swing by whenever he wanted, to move some furniture or suggest how to use a space. How in the 80s people would  throw parties in Griffith Park and wake them up or how 90s gangs would shoot at each other on the hill and how some bullets actually hit the house and the garage. How they shot the scenes for L.A. Confidential etc.

 

Just fascinating to imagine what it feels like to grow up in an iconic house that people from all over the world come to see while for you, it’s just the house. Housing is some boring shit yet, it is everything and beyond.

Betty passed away a week later.

I’m just glad I got to meet her, that she left us knowing that her house will be preserved, loved and taken care of and that there was this young-ish black man who looked like a kid in a candy store, perusing everything.

Thank you, Betty and Ken.

First there was that time when the police showed up in their car on the basketball court with the dude coming out of it, pulling out his baton from his belt and yelling “how are you doing?” at me, alone runnin’ and shootin’. It was late morning during the first week of lockdown. I wasn’t impressed but I was annoyed. They were killing a bad ass streak of swishes. This officer was getting closer with his baton and I was walking away from him.

Then same place, same me but a big LAPD SUV pulls up. Time slows down. I don’t hear them coming so I’m surprised and I guess, scared. Time stops. My breathing too.

There’s this unbelievable second of…”is it.” There’s no cut to dramatic or peaceful music. It’s just silence and peace. That peace that you have to find within yourself to understand the possible situation. Situation that things might end prematurely. Everything. Next seconds. It’s bizarre. You know it’s wrong.

So I keep doing my little runs baseline. The squad car only slows down. Tinted windows, can’t tell anything. My heart is beating, there’s not a soul out there. I feel like I need to feel like a king, to dare. To not back away, attitude and energy wise? I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. It goes by so fast. They leave.

It wasn’t the first time I experienced that Silent Second in Front of the Cops but this was an intense one. It’s 2020, it already feels like the end of the world. Being black, shot and killed is such a regular life occurrence, sometimes I tear up just thinking about it. The fact that we have to be wary of the people in charge of protecting us in society is some monumental, twisted shit.

I have things to do.

Breonna Taylor, 26, an EMT and aspiring nurse in Louisville, Kentucky, was shot eight times by police after they barged into her home in the middle of the night in March, in what her family is calling a botched drug-warrant execution. No drugs were found.

It keeps happening. It keeps being traumatic. It’s impossible to look away. It’s very easy to shut it all down.

There’s this thing where we have all the information about those horrifying murders online, including footage, but in the real world… Housemates, coworkers, family. I don’t know, no one talks about it. As if those people, Breonna, Ahmaud and more didn’t even exist. As if the news, social media, comments about them didn’t exist. I fucking hate that.

I understand. We do not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with them. But that’s where I force myself. I force myself to look and absorb some of the pain because it’s too easy, far too easy to slide into the dark side of IDGAF. It is my problem. I am concerned as well. My safety is in question.

I’m with them. And they’re not with me anymore.

As it’s been said all over the online world, The Last Dance is really good.

There was this bit about how his mom, Deloris Jordan, pushed him to go see that struggling little shoe company called Nike instead of trying to sign with Michael’s favorite brand, Adidas.

It’s not a mom thing. It’s a woman thing. It’s something a majority of women absolutely excel and outperform men on a daily basis: doing what you’re supposed to do.

MJ was supposed to go see Nike. We men think we’re smart as hell trying to outplay the game. Trying to cheat the game. Trying to take a shortcut. It sounds smart, but it never really is. The problem is that it usually backfires. And then you have to clean up your mess and swallow Ls.

Imagine MJ doesn’t go see Nike, basically sending the message “I don’t deal with amateurs” (Nike at that time was often selling shoes from the back of cars). Then he thinks he’s in bed with Adidas, who didn’t care about Michael. He doesn’t get the contract with his favorite brand, goes back to see Nike, who now passes on him because he’s shifty.

Had MJ followed his cocky, man mind, the Air Jordan story would be so wildly different. It wouldn’t exist.

Basically men are loudly like “but I don’t like it, I can probably find a way to…” and women are softly like “nut the fuck up, go through the steps and smile, you bad, savage bitch”.  It often works for them because well, it’s a pretty good plan most of the time.

Including when you’re a young black man from Chicago meeting with older white dudes from Portland.

Thank you, women.

I wrote this post in May 2018. Got a great, informative and cute comment in November 2019. I just answered. It’s May 2020.

This is lovely to me. Being asynchronous, sharing things with strangers. And then moving on with your life.

Denise shared her story with the house I wrote about. She didn’t try to get attention. She simply shared. I learned something. We don’t need to have a conversation. I don’t need to try to make her my friend. I didn’t write that post to get attention, I only shared what I thought was interesting about my little research on architecture and house building.

One time I was writing about some heartache and was apologizing that yes, that might not be the most interesting thing to read. Except that someone commented that it was useful to them, giving them some perspective on their own things they’re going through. That stayed with me.

It’s what’s missing these days online, or at least what I miss the most. Real people (not “influencers”), sharing things just for sharing them and not for money, likes or RTs or none of that pointless, anxiety-inducing shit. Just honest information and go. Let folks absorb whatever they want without the tyranny of opening their mouth about it. Only when or if it’s burning your palate three days later. That’s good! You then probably have interesting things to say.

Okay,

If I had one house I’d love to visit and stay for a week at, it’s this one:

The Arango House, Acapulco, Mexico. Built in 1973. By John Lautner, duh.

I wouldn’t know how to act, honestly. Would I jump in the water, doing pull up on the bridge or would I be swimming around the open air living room as fast as I can, giggling like a hysterical sugar rushed kid, or would I just be quiet and take it all in my soul while making sure I don’t fall off anything? Someday, I’ll find out. So there’s this um, pool and then under and adjacent to the main structure:

There’s a real, deep pool. Would I change that for a lil skate park? Sure could. Guess what is under the El Camino pool?

Another pool. That’s just a tub I guess. All I can see is myself in a robe walking slowly around this, constantly smiling at my boo. Hey, boo. Let’s get in the tub, boo. I made you breakfast, boo. Let’s do nothing, boo.

During construction. Built under a year. The engineers and workers did a stellar job. Concrete was poured. A whole lot. I enjoy the casual 70s shit where the dude is just standing up there without protection. He falls, he probably dies. He didn’t fall and they finished that house that will look futuristic and incredible for absolutely forever.

Period. Also, goddamn.

I remember the headline in February and I remember telling myself “I don’t have time for this right now”. I’m sorry, Ahmaud Arbery. it’s been truly crazy. The way your life ended abruptly has been, too.

The video leaked yesterday and popped up in my feed, I didn’t have the time to read the description. The murder was already happening. Right under it, the story of a black woman doing more™.

I can’t think. I just want to hold my Black beloved ones against my chest and breathe them forever. You can never leave me. I gauge at how high I can charge up my anger. Too high. That’s self-destruction high and I can’t afford that. I’m building. I’m securing. I’m maintaining. I’m having flashbacks. They always happen. The previous dead black bodies that were not supposed to go cold anytime soon.

Rest is all there is.