STYLE: ARCHITECTURE : Box Tops

It was three years in the making, but Jeffrey Daniels has won applause from his easygoing Laurel Canyon neighbors for building the only modern house on the street. Squeezed upward by the steep, 25-foot-wide site, he created for himself a stack of rooms--a garage-cum-drafting office and a soaring loft, with two bedrooms sandwiched between--that rises 42 feet above the street. To extend and animate the integrally colored stucco box, he framed the upstairs windows with acid-washed copper and added angled steel fins in front and a projecting wood pergola in back.

The pergola is decorative; the fins are ornamental and functional. Daniels has used them before, in the eye-catching KFC franchise on Western Avenue, which he designed during his partnership with Elyse Grinstein. Here, the fins suggest an agave sprouting from a square terra-cotta pot and shade windows from the midday sun.

The two bedrooms are tucked into the hillside and lit by small front and side windows. Steps ascend to the lofty living room and to the study above the kitchen-dining area. The drama of the climb is enhanced by the contrast between high and low ceilings, brightly lit and cozy rooms. Daniels’ friend Lisa Adams has filled every expanse with her powerful canvases. And the architect has indulged his love of unadorned materials: exposed fir rafters, oak-strip floors and cherry cabinets, plus rusted steel handrails and a fireplace wall clad in polished copper.

Simultaneously exciting and serene, this house is as timeless as a Craftsman bungalow--except for the romantic shadows cast by the wood Venetian blinds. Says Daniels: “It’s my homage to Raymond Chandler, who often mentions Laurel Canyon in his stories.”