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At home with Schindler

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Times Staff Writer

It isn’t often that a Rudolf M. Schindler-designed home comes on the market. When one does, it’s likely to have concrete walls and a stark look, standing on a steep, once inexpensive lot.

Schindler was known for frugality. An exception was the Rodriguez House, designed by the Austrian in 1941. This home, built for a family named Rodriguez, is on a gently sloping site in a pastoral area of Glendale.

Schindler, who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, emulated his teacher’s style in this home, using redwood framing with stucco and Santa Maria stone veneers. His L-shaped floor plan encloses gardens in the front and rear. The bedroom wing, with a sleeping porch, is elevated over a breezeway linking the gardens.

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To further the idea of bringing the outdoors in, Schindler used walls of glass to line the public rooms and raised the roof in the rear to allow treetop views through clerestory windows.

Green shades of paint on the outside blend with the landscaping, which is highlighted by a stone swimming pool and an ornamental pond.

There is built-in furniture in most rooms.

About this house: Schindler saw only 150 of his projects built, and although almost all were constructed in the L.A. area, they included apartment and commercial buildings as well as single-family homes. Many of his projects have been demolished. Of the few houses that remain, most were designed after the Depression, using cheaper materials, locations and construction processes. Even so, Schindler is more revered now than in his lifetime, which ended in 1953.

This house is registered for tax benefits under the Mills Act.

Asking price: $2 million

Size: The house has four bedrooms and four bathrooms in just under 2,400 square feet. It’s on a double lot of 13,800 square feet.

Features: Copper panels for the fireplace in the master bedroom were designed by a member of the Rodriguez family.

The swimming pool is new, and the kitchen has been rebuilt. The home also has a garden workshop, wine storage, two screened-in patios, air conditioning in most rooms and copper plumbing.

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Where: Glendale

Listing agent: Peter Martocchio, (626) 792-0086, and David Goldberg, (626) 792-0474, both with Sotheby’s International Realty, Pasadena.

To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, please send color interior and exterior photos on a CD with caption information and a brief description of the house, including what makes the property unusual, to Ruth Ryon, Real Estate section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Questions can be sent to homeoftheweek @latimes.com.

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