Best of 2008: Home photography

Tim Gallagher stands in the front doorway of his home in Crowley Lake near Mammoth. Conceived as a series of carefully stacked boxes sheathed in glass, cement board and corrugated metal, the house affords its owner solitude, capturing mountain views while shielding him from neighbors.  (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Ilse Ackerman and husband Meeno Peluce transformed a 1926 Lincoln Heights fixer-upper into Skyfarm, a haven for daughters India and Mette and a growing menagerie. Here, the family sits in a treehouse in the yard. When Ackerman and Peluce bought the home six years ago, an inspector had called it a “marriage breaker.” But the couple always saw the home’s potential. And today, Ackerman says, “There is no way we will ever leave this house.”  (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

Jillian Choy, 5, plays with the family dog Este in the entry hall of her parents’ Studio City home. The entryway’s spotlights lend a bit of Hollywood glitz, which contrasts with the home’s farmhouse design. Jillian’s parents -- architects Vanessa Choy and Andrew Wong -- chose to build a farmhouse-style home to reflect a way of living that is elegant in its simplicity, sophisticated yet functional.  (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Shanghai modern was one of many yesteryear decor trends that reemerged in 2008.  (Myung Chun / Los Angeles Times)

A guest sits at the edge of a lap pool against a backdrop of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic 1924 Ennis House. The Los Feliz home, Wright’s fourth and final textile-block house in Los Angeles, was inspired by Mayan and Aztec structures. “It is L.A.’s Machu Picchu,” says one architect.  (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

T.D. Rio and husband Wilhelm Staehle show off some of their works -- including soap shaped like a Victorian cameo and a pistol -- at the Los Angeles Felt Club’s annual exhibition and sale held at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center in November. The couple are members of a growing community of young artisans who, in this era of computerization and mass marketing, is adding its own twists to homemade crafts.  (Stefano Paltera / For The Times)

A Warhol Jackie O. portrait hangs over Craftsman copper and ceramic kitsch in Jim Turner and Luis Barajas’ four-story, Spanish Revival villa in the Hollywood Hills. The house is filled with a melange of collectibles, including a resin deer head lamp, glass elephants and American quilts.  (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

Doug Kottler stands in his living room, with its fuschia and lime green sheers and a banana-colored light fixture. This 1940 Spanish Revival house, in the South Carthay neighborhood in Los Angeles, looks tame on the outside, but the interior plays adventurously with colors.  (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

A large wooden window opens inward to the living room of Katrina Rivers’ 1910 Mount Washington home. As a writer and self-described healer, Rivers had yearned for a house with magic and where she could see green from every window. When she looked at the home three years ago, she saw its potential and quickly made it her own. “I truly feel like this house waited for me,” she says.  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

This swimming pool at the Harpel House, owned by John Lautner, overlooks the San Fernando Valley. Lautner is one of the most important figures in the history of L.A. architecture. The 1956 house had been severely altered -- ruined, some might say -- but midcentury architecture aficionado Mark Haddawy purchased the property in 2006 and finished restoring it this year to its original design.  (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

An aloe tree stands like a sculpture outside the dining room of the Charles Arnoldi home in Malibu. Arnoldi, who designed the aluminum table, is a contemporary artist whose work is in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Norton Simon in Pasadena and New York’s Metropolitan Museum and Museum of Modern Art.  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)