Architect Weds Couple’s Varied Styles in Custom Canyon House

Dr. Paul Miller and his wife, Peggy Nazarey, have recently had an experience that many would envy, few can afford and most would imagine is a dream come true--they have built a house designed to their own desires.

Miller and Nazarey discovered that building a dream home is not pure pleasure. One of the most personal and privileged acts in anyone’s lifetime, designing a house tailored to one’s needs is, by turns, exciting and wrenching, uplifting and depressing. The process can change your marriage and make you re-examine your own ideas about yourself.

This is the story of one couple’s odyssey with their architect through the planning and construction of a custom-designed house. It is both typical and particular--typical in broad outline, personal in detail.

When Miller began to think about building a house on his Hollywood hillside site four years ago, he was not yet married to Nazarey and his thoughts at the time revolved around plans for a bachelor’s house, designed for one man’s pleasure, peace and comfort.

Miller found his architect without much looking around. He noticed a studio that Stephen Ehrlich had designed near his lot and liked its fresh simplicity. From the start, Miller and Ehrlich recognized that they shared a common feeling about houses.

“I had lived in a Japanese-style house on a slope near Lake Tahoe that I loved,” Miller said. “I loved its uncluttered interior, the way its rooms opened directly onto the landscape and were drenched with light and the sound of the stream that ran by my door. Most of all, I relished its serenity, its sense of soothing and of peace. These were the qualities I perceived in Stephen’s architecture, so I chose him at once.”

Said Ehrlich: “What attracted me to Paul was his intensity. He felt his house should be intensely serene and give him a context to be quiet and truly at peace with himself. That’s what I think domestic shelter should be.”

A year went by as client and architect discussed ideas and got to know one another’s character. These two strong personalities established a common ground based on mutual respect and liking.

Miller’s marriage to Nazarey altered the two-way interaction between Miller and Ehrlich. The male client-architect bond had to be loosened to include a third--female--sensibility.

“Paul and Stephen got on so well it wasn’t easy for me to butt in when we finally decided, after five years of going together, that we would be married,” Nazarey said.

“You could say that a scene that began as ‘two’s company, three’s a crowd’ was gradually converted into a kind of menage a trois, “ Nazarey said.

“I remember one evening at Chianti (a restaurant on Melrose Avenue) when Paul and Stephen were engrossed in sketching ideas on scraps of paper. I wondered then how I would fit into this very intimate communication between Paul and his architect over the house I would inhabit as Paul’s wife.”

Tastes Differed

Nazarey is the director of nursing at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, situated between Carson and Torrance, where Miller worked as a hospital psychiatrist. (He has since become a free-lance emergency room psychiatrist in the San Gabriel Valley area.) They were married in April, 1986, four months before the house began to be built.

Nazarey’s taste in houses inclined her toward the traditional Spanish Colonial Revival-style of the villa she was sharing with Miller in Palos Verdes.

“At times I wondered how I’d feel about living in a house that is so modern,” she said. “But Paul and Stephen converted me, though not easily, to this kind of architecture.”

Said Ehrlich:

“Peggy wanted a house that was cozy, while Paul wanted it to be spacious. It was up to them to find out how these apparently conflicting feelings could be resolved. It was up to me to find a way to resolve them architecturally, to satisfy both husband and wife, and that indefinable but powerful third entity, the marriage.”

Desire for Simplicity

“We became closer through this whole experience,” Nazarey said. “Discussing the minutiae of our daily lives in such detail together and with a third person--the architect--brought us face to face with our similarities and our differences.

“I discovered how much of a minimalist my husband is, how deeply he desires simplicity, even at the cost of comfort. He discovered that I’m so much less of a purist, that I like some clutter and disorder in my life.”

Of his role, Ehrlich said:

“An architect listens to what people say and tries to intuit what they mean by their feelings about a home. Then he takes that feeling, which may be very strong but still quite vague in physical terms, and transforms it into an actual shape. It’s a kind of alchemy, like turning dreams into reality.”

Miller came to Ehrlich with the idea of a 3,000-square-foot house backed up against the slope, oriented toward the canyon view. He ended up with a 4,400-square-foot house set away from the slope whose only canyon view is from the wide kitchen window.

‘Stroke of Genius’

The architect suggested that the house be moved away from the hillside to create a private exterior space that would serve Miller’s desire for a serene and private environment. Living with a splendid, long-range view, Ehrlich explained, would distract from the sense of enclosure and separation from the outside world that his client yearned for.

“This was Stephen’s stroke of genius,” Miller said. “As soon as he proposed turning the house inwards, I knew it was right for me. My dream began to take shape.”

Dreams cost money. The original budget--which Miller prefers not to disclose--was overrun by 70%.

(Given an average of $100-plus per square foot for custom-built house construction, plus the architect’s 15% fee and extra costs caused by the tricky geology of the hillside site, a total bill of around $750,000 would be a good guess for the Miller-Nazarey house.)

Extra expenses were incurred when a city inspector insisted on the construction of a $100,000 retaining wall alongside the entry driveway. Other extras came about because the clients wanted more expensive materials than originally specified, such as granite instead of tiles on the kitchen counters, and the special double-bleached red-oak strip flooring in the living and dining rooms.

Experience in Hillsides

The escalating costs created considerable stress.

“We had some heavy meetings with Stephen and the contractor,” Miller remembered. “Naturally, we wanted the best, but the outflow seemed endless. Yet we trusted the architect and Robin Thom, the contractor. We knew the increased charges weren’t incurred frivolously.”

Thom’s bid was neither the lowest nor the highest of the four that were made for the house’s construction. Thom was chosen because he had experience in building houses on hillsides and because he appreciated the qualities of the design.

“The three-way interaction that develops between client, architect and contractor on a job like this is more than just a business relationship,” Ehrlich said. “In this difficult and challenging process there’s so much that can’t be put on paper, either on a drawing or in the contract. If you can’t operate with the shared aim of doing the very best job possible, the whole thing can become a living hell.”

View of Contractor

Thom explained his role:

“The contractor is the project’s basic ‘Reality Man.’ After the first flush of the contract-signing honeymoon is over, the facts of life crash through the door. I’m compelled to present both client and architect with hard facts and harder choices.

“This can be done gracefully or aggressively, but it’s never pleasant, and is sometimes downright nasty. You get a really good measure of everyone’s character in this struggle to squeeze the dream through reality’s wringer.”

After the two years that passed while the design was developed, six months passed getting geological surveys and obtaining needed permits from the city’s Department of Building and Safety. Construction took another 14 months.

Heated arguments over the design continued even as the deep concrete caissons anchoring the house were being pile-driven into the ground. A fierce battle raged over a picture window Nazarey wanted in the living room, to take advantage of the view over the neighboring hills.

“Peggy and I had a real showdown over the view window,” Ehrlich said. “Paul was kind of in the middle. As the conflict dragged on, Paul came to me and said, ‘I believe you’re right, but I’m going to back my wife.’ I couldn’t really blame him for his conjugal loyalty. . . .”

Appreciate Final Shape

But Nazarey conceded that a view window would destroy the serene inward orientation of the living room toward the waterfall and the landscaped slopes. Ehrlich explained that the house’s steel-frame skeleton would allow her to cut in a view window later if, after living in the house, she still felt she wanted it.

As the house rose above ground, Miller and Nazarey began to appreciate what the final shape would look and feel like. Their excitement grew as they paced the site and watched the construction crew erect the steel skeleton and flesh it out with timber studs.

But with the highs came lows, mostly over the escalating costs that sometimes seemed out of control. The Millers wanted the best, but bankruptcy seemed to loom every time they talked to the contractor or changed a detail or chose a better finish than the one the contract specified.

Miller and Nazarey’s self-discovery-through-house-design continued through the construction period. As the tensions of financial stress and conflicts of taste began to ease, the couple began to relish the prospect of inhabiting a house tailored to fit them.

‘We Couldn’t Wait’

“This is what I call the ‘ecstasy time,’ ” Thom said. “The hassles are fading and the future seems delicious. Clients even get to love their contractor in the warm glow of wonder at the realization of their dream house.”

Miller and Nazarey moved in, even though some subcontractors were still finishing off details. “We were impatient to begin enjoying the house,” Nazarey said. “We couldn’t wait a moment longer.”

“My work as an emergency room psychiatrist involves me in highly stressful life-and-death situations,” Miller said. “Then I drive 65 m.p.h on the freeway, slowing to 20 in the hills, coming to rest in my driveway. When I walk past the waterfall into my front door, I shrug off the risk and ritual of the public realm and become truly myself.”

Miller continued: “I see the phases of the moon and the pulse of the seasons reflected on my atrium wall. I know it’s the time for humming birds to mate because I see the males dance their courting ritual among the acacias. My mind is tuned to the constant sound of water out there.”

“Building this house has helped define and clarify--and enrich--our young and tender marriage,” Nazarey said. “On a practical level, and despite the extra costs, it’s turned out to be the best financial investment we’ve ever made.”

“Building a house is stressful,” Ehrlich emphasized. “People have to be ready for a major journey, to be strong enough to go through, well, suffering. It’s a unique and deeply human experience.”

“The house is a live-in sculpture,” Miller said. “It’s a work of art that we inhabit and helped create. Do you realize what a privilege that is?”