People Who Live in Glass Houses

BACKGROUND: Some laughed, others winced, when the glass pyramid house started going up in the Sierra Madre foothills in the 1970s. Since it was written about in View(April, 1991), the pyramid has been sold and survived the Sierra Madre quake (uncracked).

UPDATE: Now, there’s talk of making it a city landmark. Those favoring the idea include Roy Buchan, lifelong Sierra Madre resident and, until recently, its mayor.

At first, he says, “I was afraid it was going to be kind of a screwball thing. Now, I like it. I don’t know if I could live in it exactly. . . . “

Buchan attended owner Catherine Gallagher’s recent party held to show off the first phase of renovations. She moved in last May, and off the glass walls came a decade’s accumulation of smog.

Tom Regan, partner of the late John McKinney, the architect, is overseeing the six-figure redo of the $450,000 pyramid. Shade trees will be planted. Subterranean pipes will bring in cold air. The garage will become an entertainment cabana.

“We want this to be the most high-tech house in Los Angeles,” he says. It is already a movie star, appearing in publicity shots for “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

Gallagher plans to open the house to charities for fund-raisers and, eventually, leave it to a university. It’s perfect, she reasons, for the study of engineering and architecture.