A Neutra-style house without the designer price tag
By Emily Young
It all started in 2005, when film producer Mark Gill moved in with screenwriter Hanna Weg and asked, “Honey, can I move the couch?” Little did they know this modest request would lead to a two-year makeover that transformed a nondescript clapboard-and-stucco box to a modern jewel. So they hired Roger Sherman, a Culver City architect and co-director of cityLAB, a
Architect Sherman’s was to keep the same footprint but make the house more efficient by optimizing wasted space, reducing clutter and opening up the floor plan of the 2,000-square-foot house, which was built in 1963. The most obvious changes are visible on the front façade, once yellow-painted siding and stucco, now pristine white steel-troweled stucco. Sherman shaved off the eaves, then extended walls 3 feet higher to create the illusion of a flat roof. He tripled the number of windows and called for frames in aluminum instead of wood.
The entrance, formerly an unsightly jumble that was difficult to navigate, got redesigned from the foundation up and turned into a courtyard for privacy. Concrete steps lead down to Weg’s office, and a stairway of steel and tropical hardwood rises to the main house. “The courtyard works in a very Greek way,” Sherman says. “There are different pathways and whitewashed walls. It’s an Escher-like geometrical puzzle.”
The landscape design in front -- including walls, railings, stairs and lighting -- was handled by Russ Cletta. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The new front door is glass. Bands of glass throughout the home flood interiors with daylight and expand views out. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
After the remodel: bright, open, airy. Flimsy glass sliders made way for telescoping glass doors that stretch 45 feet across. “This required the surgical insertion of steel beams and laminated wood beams that allowed us to put in longer spans of glass,” Sherman says. The result makes the living and dining rooms an extension of the backyard, and vice versa. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
And now: sleek, chic and better connected to the outdoors. The living room is on the left, the kitchen and dining room on the right, behind the glass. Shaved eaves and extended exterior walls create the illusion of a clean, crisp box. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Even with the doors shut, the interiors feel connected to the outside. The newly painted ceiling also helps to keep the space bright and modern. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
In the living area: more transparency, via the furnishings. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Weg and Gill lived at home during the remodel, which consisted of a series of self-contained projects. Sherman began in the cramped kitchen, raising the ceiling and replacing the pink marble floor and dated equipment with a maple floor, white cabinetry and stainless-steel appliances and countertops. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The main hallway: Natural light galore. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
“In many ways, remodeling was more interesting and greener than starting from scratch,” Sherman says. “We live in what I call the ‘re-’ era, as in recycle, reuse, restore. Rather than starting with tabula rasa, it’s a matter of how clever you can be at reengineering a place to make it better.” (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Sherman needed to eke out quarters for Gill’s son, Jack, 12, who spends weekends at the house. That meant lowering the ceiling in the two-story-high garage to squeeze in a 400-square-foot rec room, shown here, above the parking space. Weg and Gill initially planned to have the spiral staircase custom-fabricated out of resin to resemble a strand of DNA. When that proved too costly, they scoured the Internet until they found a sculptural stainless steel and maple Italian design worthy of highlighting through a new window over the garage. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
“It took a year and three months to get it delivered, and when it was, it came without English instructions,” Weg says of the staircase. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The guest bathroom. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The master bedroom was made slightly smaller to yield space for the spiral staircase linking the rec room to the rest of the house. The wide passage to the bathroom makes the space seem larger. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
The master bathroom … (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
… with its transparent sinks. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
Weg maintained her office downstairs. The long, drawn-out remodel comes with a happy ending. Though Weg and Gill decline to reveal their costs, now that the dust has settled the couple say they finally have a Neutra-style house without the Neutra-size price tag. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)