Raise High the Roof Beam
Modernist architect Raquel Vert laughs when she recalls the 10 years during which she and her husband, Chaim, lived in their 1950s Encino ranch house before deciding to remodel. “I was working around the clock, seven days a week, in Frank Gehry’s office and didn’t have time for anything,” she says, “much like the proverbial shoemaker’s child with no shoes.” She even resisted making decorative changes. “I wanted to do it right or not do anything at all.” It was Chaim, a veterinarian, who first saw the house and bought it for its proximity to his office and its sweeping views of the San Gabriel Mountains. However, Vert admits that from day one she was unhappy with the home’s low ceilings and dark interior. “I’m a total modernist. I love the light. But I kept thinking we would eventually move.” When the porch began to collapse, she knew it was time to do something.
“I decided to transform the house without demolishing it. We built around the existing structure, which ended up being very efficient economically,” explains Vert. She began by pouring a foundation around the existing one--expanding the house from 2,800 to 5,500 square feet, then raising the rooftop to lift ceiling heights and bring in light. “Conceptually it gives you an opportunity to create some interesting spaces--the way Gehry did when he built an envelope around his house.”
Vert, as her mentor Gehry is wont to do, employed a palette of simple materials--plywood and Douglas fir, glass and stucco--to update the traditional interior. Her original plan called for adding on a studio, master bedroom and kitchen while enlarging the existing living room. But when the contractor finished framing the enlarged foyer and dining room with lofty, 18- to 20-foot-high ceilings, she changed her mind. “The living room’s sloped ceiling and dark beams seemed completely out of proportion to the rest of the house,” she recalls. “I couldn’t stop there.”
Next, Vert modernized the facade. Set on a steep hillside, the original two-story home sat half a level below the street. “The only thing you could see from the road was a dark, wood-shingled roof. I wanted to lift the house up visually,” says Vert, who added an upstairs studio that is seen from the street. For privacy, she constructed a six-foot-tall concrete block wall at the front of the property. An exterior stair to the right of the home leads to a new entrance that faces a group of Douglas fir trees. “When I opened my front door before the remodel, I saw cars whizzing by. Now I see green,” she explains. In addition, a dramatic cantilevered canopy cools the entry in the summer. Vert also replaced the dark redwood siding with a finish of gray stucco that was painted ochre in places to pick up the color of the canopy.
Inside, the architect installed a large picture window above the entry door, with vertical glass panels on each side framing a view of giant birds of paradise, pampas grass, flax and agaves. “It was important to me that there be a dialogue between inside and out,” she explains. She also added a 26-foot-long window wall and a pair of 10-foot-high mitered windows in her upstairs studio to showcase a jacaranda. “I sometimes feel like I’m sitting in a modern treehouse,” she says. Vert gave the used-brick fireplace a face-lift by building out the wall and covering the brick with a smooth stucco finish resembling concrete. Finally, she lightened the interior with gallery-white paint, clear white oak flooring and multiple skylights. Again Vert credits Gehry, this time with teaching her how to define space through light and volume.
For the master bedroom, she fashioned a platform bed, headboard and night tables from plywood and sealed them with a clear finish. “Off-the-shelf materials have a beauty all their own,” the architect explains. She sprayed the built-in entertainment center and kitchen and bathroom cabinets with gray car paint for a subtle metallic-like finish. “I like to experiment with different materials,” she says. And, like many architects, Vert uses her home as a design laboratory. “The trick is to take common things and transform them.”
What Inspires Raquel Vert
The Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, designed by Frank Gehry--”a perfect harmony of form, space, light.” Todao Ando’s Kyoto Garden of Fine Arts in Japan.
Le Corbusier’s 1928 Villa Savoye.
Venice, Italy.
Fernando Botero’s sculpted women.
Robert Rauschenberg’s collages--”for transforming basic materials into art.”
