STYLE : ARCHITECTURE : Hearth and Harmony
Every so often, we get to see what happens when a virtuoso tackles a small but challenging work. Los Angeles architect Scott Johnson, director of design at Johnson Fain and Pereira, has handled large commercial projects with aplomb: Fox Plaza and 1999 Avenue of the Stars in Century City and, most recently, Opus One, the Napa Valley winery for Robert Mondavi and Philippe de Rothschild. Now he shows that he is equally adept at residential renovation.
This 1930s house in Cheviot Hills, originally a Cape Cod-style home, was “curbside-quaint, with a small bay, dormer windows and a brick path that led to the front door,” says its current owner. Then along came Johnson, who recalls his plan: “The idea was to leave the box and blow out the inside.” So he stripped the one-story structure down to its foundation, then expanded it upward, backward and sideways to widen the small, dark rooms along a spacious central hall. Now patchwork rafters soar more than 16 feet over the living room, and clerestory windows let in a shower of light. The effect is sleek yet warm.
Throughout the house, Johnson chose a handful of materials--wood, glass and tile--to strike a modern chord and threw in a bit of fiesta color for an extra beat. The original brick fireplace, for example, is wrapped in maple, topped with granite and flanked by maple bookcases partitioned into small color fields. In the dining room, a huge dome appears to hover above a cherry-and-glass table, while a cantilevered maple-and-glass buffet seems to float in midair along one wall.
Intersecting the center of the house is a staircase that leads to new guest bedrooms upstairs. Panels of ribbon-cut African sapele and American cherry march up the wall to a landing of glass and confetti-colored tiles. Johnson has taken his grand vision and made it work on a smaller scale--a symphony of architectural notes.
