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Homes of The Times
Our top design profiles, as chosen by readers
New profiles of houses, condos and apartments each week. Your clicks count: Only the most popular galleries will maintain their spot on our list. For sales alerts, drought-tolerant gardening advice and more, click to our L.A. at Home blog.
John Williams and Kim Pesenti wanted a house that maximizes its connection to the outdoors.
The one bedroom guest house is stuffed with art (and a sense of humor).
“I don’t dream of anything bigger and I don’t lack for anything,” he says.
The former host of 'Design on a Dime' keeps the cost low when she makes over her Venice house, which is filled with smart solutions for budget-minded DIYers and renters who don't want to sink a ton of cash into a home they don't own. A kitchen makeover for $1,000? No problem.
The recipe for success? A classic Gregory Ain modernist house in Mar Vista and hosts with a strong belief that thrifty can be fabulous.
Twin modern boxes rise on a hillside outside downtown L.A. Why modern, and why here? The design-build team says it was the cheapest lot on the Multiple Listing Service at the time of purchase. Peek inside one of the houses, which an art lover and part-time DJ has made into a cool place to kick back with friends.
The Sleepers — Curtis, Deborah and their children, Kian, Perry and baby Theodore Wesley — live in a 17,000-square-foot gouge in the earth.
In Corona del Mar, an architect transforms a 1950s property into a warm, contemporary residence built with a nod to sustainability.
A look at four stops on this year's Venice Garden & Home Tour.
The Ensenada coast and nearby Valle de Guadalupe wine-making region inland are testing grounds for their experiments in green design. Their home is no exception.
Robert Stone's indoor-outdoor dwelling on the outskirts of Joshua Tree pushes the boundaries of desert design. Black walls? Heart-shaped window? Spa in the living room? It's all different.
Couple trade their midcentury modern in Pasadena for a centuries-old courtyard and views of the Gothic church in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
A peek inside the world of Jerome and Evelyn Ackerman, whose midcentury ceramics, wood carvings and textiles are filled with classic California optimism.
Peek inside producer John Melfi's space-savvy design. Spacious living on a 30-by-80-foot lot? Melfi's architect, Steven Shortridge, shows you how.
John Friedman Alice Kimm Architects devise a modern house that embraces its neighborhood. Think of it as a contemporary riff on the front porch.
"Everything’s a canvas — whether it’s my house, my body or my front lawn."
A 1922 miner’s cabin near Big Bear Lake that was in "deplorable” condition becomes a designer's four season getaway.
After 50 years, female architect Greta Magnusson Grossman finally gets her due. Step inside her glass-walled residence, updated by its new owner.
Her goal: to preserve the architecture but make it her own, not some by-the-numbers retro palace.
Ali Jeevanjee and Poonam Sharma combine two apartments into one live-work space. Their solution to dark, claustrophobic interiors: Punch a hole in the roof and put a courtyard in the center of the home.
When Bowman and husband Joe Fineman wanted to remodel their house, Culver City architect Lorcan O’Herlihy suggested turning what had been the living room into an alfresco space
“Friends and clients come over and tell me how beautiful my garden is — they have no idea it’s not real,” says the talent agent.
Romanian architect Haralamb Georgescu's midcentury Pasinetti house is lovingly renovated.
Designer Jamie Bush and architect Georgie Kajer help a Disney producer and animator invoke a midcentury vibe without it feeling like a by-the-numbers period piece.
A boring backyard gets transformed into a dream garden with built-in seating for parties, dramatic lighting and a fountain that flows into a fire pit.
Affordable modernity? It's possible if you know where to look.
New houses designed by American architecture students and built by volunteers cost less than $7,000 apiece. The goal here in San Miguel de Allende: to help the poorest of the poor, mainly single mothers, by "building hope, one house at a time."
An L.A. contractor with a sixth sense for roadside relics rebuilds his red-flagged house out of scavanged stuff. “Everything in the house is found,” Al Teman says. “The stuff is there for free everywhere. You just have to find it.”
Trey Russell's home is as minimalist and restrained as a Beverly Hills boutique. It's also a lesson in mixing high and low: Pottery Barn shelves, West Elm bookcases and Crate & Barrel chairs keep company with Christian Liaigre consoles, stingray tables from France and $3,000 Caleb Siemon art vases. Even the dog is color-coordinated.
In the spirit of adaptive reuse, nearly all the furnishings inside this loft hail from flea markets, thrift shops or alley finds.
A couple goes from a townhouse to a small one bedroom apartment. Luckily, downsizing agrees with them.
The home of Shaya and Grant Kirkpatrick is a smartly designed retreat that alternates between openness and enclosure — sunny and expansive spaces that connect to the outdoors, and more cozy, walled-in rooms that provide plenty of privacy.
A design-minded fashion photographer turns an empty lot off Abbot Kinney into an exhuberant live-work space. By Barbara Thornburg, Los Angeles Times.
The Greystone design showcase, open through Nov. 16, presents something quite novel: a show house that actually feels like a house, not a collection of over-the-top stunts. See rooms designed by Tim Clarke, Martyn Lawrence-Bullard, Suzanne Rheinstein, Windsor Smith, Rose Tarlow and David Phoenix, among others.
Alan Smart and Michael Uhlenkott maintain a period look but still let their playful side show too. Those hand-crafted windows, stenciled ceilings and intricate tile? They designed it all themselves.
For the co-founder of Flaunt and Detour magazines, a Spanish Revial mini-castle is an entertaining showcase for his eclectic collections.
Former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro describes his style as boutique hotel meets bordello. Actress Ivana Milicevic wants her place to be glam-girl sexy. Interior designer Jennifer Culp aims for pretty but pragmatic. Virtually idential spaces, three different expressions of style. Let the decorating begin.
Santa Monica architects Hadrian Predock and John Frane reimagine the hillside residence, finding fresh ways to bring light and air inside a family home.
Architect Jonathan Segal uses glass floors to illuminate 1,800 square feet of subterranean living space. A basement patio? It's possible.
Pierre Andre Senizergues surrounds himself with a cool vibe, warm color and, yes, furniture made with the decks and wheels that made him famous.
With the help of designer Betsy Burnham, Bryan Fuller reins in his love of horror-flick kitsch while re-imagining his Silver Lake house. Sci-fi toys are joined by beautiful fabrics, interesting furniture and more grown-up accessories.
Grandma Gloria Swanson’s influence is felt in every room of Brooke Anderson’s L.A. home. Just add some fine antiques and a little Hollywood history.
Fifty years after it premiered as the house of The Times, this valley retreat gets a period-flavored remodel by owners Warner Walcott and Jonn Coolidge.
The playful, cube-shaped structure by Aleks Istanbullu Architects pleases the eye, from the graphic green siding wrapping the exterior to the calming quarters inside.
It's Spanish meets 'Star Trek' in South Pasadena. (Yes, really).
Modern architect Melinda Gray and "High School Musical" producer Bill Borden bring fresh eyes to Leo Carrillo’s 1932 hacienda.
Reader favorite: Outside Pioneertown, architect Lloyd Russell constructs a giant steel canopy for something that's part home, part rental and part performance venue. His client: Jim Austin, a musician and surf wear entrepreneur who sought modern architecture infused with desert spirit.
Ilse Ackerman and Meeno Peluce bring the natural world to their children. Chicken coop, veggie garden, bee boxes -- they're all here, just outside downtown L.A.
One of TV's most distinctive voices has a decidedly country design vocabulary at her Northridge home. Think roses, chandeliers, lots of pink. Oh, yes, and there's that cow.
The architectural team of Ali Jeevanjee, Steffen Leisner and Phillip Trigas added living space to a 970-foot bungalow while respecting the scale of other buildings in the neighborhood. The modern, minimalist design works with the homeowners’ love of the unconventional. Case in point: that bathtub on the stairway landing.
Join Johnson Hartig, co-designer of clothing line Libertine, on a guided tour of his remodeled 1920s Mediterranean bungalow near Hancock Park. Is that a Champagne bottle in the shower stall? Oh, that's just the start ...
Architect Jesse Bornstein goes beyond the eco-hype at this project, designed to maximize natural light and make good use of sustainable materials. Solar panels? Of course.
When Vanessa Choy and Andrew Wong closed their architecture practice in Hong Kong and moved to Los Angeles, they bought a Studio City lot and made plans for a traditional house with a progressive spin. The result is a pleasing mix of country and city, rustic and industrial, casual and refined.
Drawn by the 2-acre landscape, Katrina Rivers bought the nondescript house and made it into an offbeat, bohemian, only-in-L.A. retreat.
Please don't call it split-level. It's a split plane house. Architect Jesse Bornstein modifies a classic idea for a modern age, crafting a home that feels spacious and open yet intimate -- a private refuge graced with functional beauty.
The Maltman Bungalows in Silver Lake represent that rare Southern California combination: small houses, good location, not-so-outrageous prices. Take a peek at this development and other attempts to achieve similar success.
Janna Levenstein’s 1950s home was a maze of small, dark rooms. With the help of a UCLA architecture student and Google’s free software, she turned the space into a bright, sleek, indoor-outdoor living space where every room opens onto nature.
Architects Alice Fung and Michael Blatt help homeowners make the most of a 1963 Gregory Ain design. Modernist box? Try hexagon.
Victoria Gilbert wanted to transform her cramped, claustrophobic rooms into a home with a more contemporary look and flow. For help, she turned to Apurva Pande and Chinmaya Misra of the Los Angeles design firm Chacol. Their strategy: Peel back the low ceiling.
Spare and simple is the rule in the oceanfront home of Arnoldi and his wife, Katie, a novelist. He designed the house as well as most of its furniture. When they wanted to remake the backyard, no worries: Just drive that bulldozer through the living room.
The painter, collector and now filmmaker sets up his own bit of bohemia in a Los Angeles guest house.
With Southern hospitality and an artist's eye, this gracious hosts sets the scene for an entertaining evening of good cheer, alfresco. And the house? You couldn't ask for a better setting.
The midcentury architect's house in the Hollywood Hills had been written off by preservationists after one resident added a second story and other features ill-suited for the 1956 design. But after two years of renovation, current owner Mark Haddawy has revived Lautner’s original vision.
Architect Barbara Bestor builds a cool, clever house in Los Feliz with a nod to the landmark across the street: Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House.
Architect Dan Gallagher's design for his brother, Tim, stands like a series of stacked boxes sheathed in glass, cement board and corrugated metal. It's an homage to the craggy peaks of Mammoth — and a departure from the traditional wood cabins in these mountains.
Jerome Dahan, founder of Citizens of Humanity, shares a 1927 Santa Monica house with Lela Tillem, Citizens’ head of sales. The Paris-born Dahan and Tillem have infused the home with vintage French style mixed with kicked-back Californian charm.
Though some may see Steven Sharpe's house as urban in nature, architect Zoltan Pali says the structure fundamentally is a country house responding to its setting. “Rural has always been associated with simplicity, sparseness and function,” Pali says. “That is this house."
William Krisel, 83, never won as much acclaim as Richard Neutra, Albert Frey or others who defined mid-century modernism in Palm Springs. But it was Krisel who helped to bring a modern sensibility to the middle class. Now, decades later, his plans are being built once again.
Designers Karen and Guy Vidal turned a dreary Spanish-style four-plex into a color-splashed bachelor's pad.
In a fire-prone canyon of the Angeles National Forest, architect Russell K. Johnson creates a house that he says will last for generations.
Keyshawn Johnson, the former football star at USC and now wide receiver with the NFL's Carolina Panthers, worked with Idea Space Design to create a modern, uncluttered penthouse on the Wilshire corridor.
Architectural designer Tim Campbell turns a tough hillside site into a showcase for his art collection. Here, the point isn't looking pretty. It's being provocative.
The traffic out front can be terrible and the stream in back posed even more problems. What architects crafted here represents an L.A. coup: beauty, peace and privacy on the toughest of city lots.
When John and Eva Simpson remodeled their 1920s home in San Marino, they sought a Spanish style with some personal twists. With the help of Pasadena designer Carolyn Oliver, elements of the Far East blended into the smart, sophisticated cultural fusion.
A 2003 Home article followed art gallery owner Laurie Frank as she hosted one of her renowned dinner parties at her Whitley Heights home. Sixteen months later, an electrical fire nearly destroyed the house. Take a peek into the rebuilt residence, filled with handcrafted artistry.