Case Study House No. 22: The story behind L.A.'s original dream home

By Barbara Thornburg

Case Study House No. 22 may be one of the most photographed homes in the world. Julius Shulman took this iconic shot of the house on the warm evening of May 9, 1960. The two young women seen chatting, Cynthia Tindle and Ann Lightbody, were not the owners but students whom Shulman recruited to be models. All the furnishings were staged for the shoot, supplied by furniture firm Van Keppel-Green – but only temporarily. “My mom told me she wished they would have left the furniture,” says Shari Stahl Gronwald, who grew up in the home. It was all part of the editor of Art & Architecture magazine’s Case Study House program to promote modernism. Many of the owners received cost breaks on building materials in exchange for allowing photos to run in the magazine. They were also required to open their doors to the public for a month.

Read the full story on growing up in Case Study House No. 22.

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