STYLE : GARDENS : In the Outdoors

A room doesn’t have to have a roof, as architect R. M. Schindler proved when he designed this rambling West Hollywood house for himself in 1921. Now restored, the place was a kind of urban campsite: Bedrooms were sleeping lofts, and living areas were pieces of lawn set off by berms and clipped hedges. The garden, recently replanted by landscape architect Emmet L. Wemple, extends the zigzagging geometries of the house in parallel rows of golden bamboo and privet. Blue lobelia and yellow daylilies underscore those lines, and the bamboo screens out neighbors. Most striking are sunken gardens of ivy and fountain grass that form an abstract counterpoint to the lawn. Working with Robert L. Sweeney, director of the Friends of the Schindler House, Wemple used original drawings to re-create the garden, now an open alternative to the hulking condos nearby. The Schindler House is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and by appointment.