HIGH RESOLUTION
BUNKER IN THE HILL
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Architect Brian Murphy describes the Thousand Oaks home office he designed for a lawyer as “a 10-inch-thick concrete shoebox buried into the hillside.” But the “shoebox” is anything but ordinary. The 42-by-15-foot bunker-style structure sits across a small pond inhabited by bass, crayfish, frogs and turtles from a striking split-level modern home designed by Frank Gehry in the late 1980s.
The house, on a picturesque 2 1/2-acre property with deer and rabbits, is an ideal living environment for the owner. But it wasn’t where he wanted to work. “I needed more room and a separate working environment,” he says. “It’s not pleasant to live and work in the same space.” Murphy nestled the newer structure, which houses two offices separated by a bathroom and a storage closet, into the hillside surrounded by a grove of 100-year-old oaks. Light enters the building through a chambered skylight that runs the length of the building and through an additional skylight in the bathroom. Three large picture windows frame views of the waterfall and pond that arise from a tributary of a creek that traverses the property. At each end of the building industrial steel sash windows open onto small balconies that the owner says are “ideal for reading briefs and taking conference calls.”
Inside, the design is crisp and spartan: concrete walls, a Douglas fir floor, bare windows. An airy desk floats in the center of the room. Computer and desk lamp cords disappear through one of the desk’s legs into conduits in the floor. On a nearby wall, translucent velum paper sconces that Murphy tacked up with push pins cast a soft light over a bank of white metal files holding legal documents. Floor lamps, which the architect fashioned from electrical conduits, diamond plate and skateboard wheels, and a white Corian conference table on lockable casters are easily movable. Outside, Murphy replaced an existing wood bridge with a 30-foot-long galvanized-steel span suspended above the waterfall, which ebbs and flows with the seasons.
The office commute over the water and through the woods takes 40 seconds. That is, unless the homeowner stops to inspect the black heron’s nest in the oak by the pond or look around for the resident bobcat. “My work is often stressful,” he says. “It’s wonderful to be in such a serene environment. Plus, it’s convenient to go home and have a sandwich whenever I want.”
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SOUND STUDIO
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Tom Schnabel’s home office on the second floor of his Moroccan-inspired Venice home was cramping his style. “I got tired of hearing my phone ring all the time. My girlfriend did too,” says Schnabel, the producer and host of KCRW’s Cafe LA. “I needed some separation from work. Besides I had seven boxes of CDs filling my guest bedroom. I needed a place to put them.” When an adjacent lot became available, Schnabel bought it and called in Santa Monica architectural designer Robert Ramirez to conceive a separate sound studio/home office next to the house.
The result is a 20-foot-square structure with an overhang roof. The facade features fixed crossbeams above the five-foot-window bays and French doors that open onto a pool and tropical garden. A massive corner tower of eight-inch concrete block surrounds the new sound room, where Schnabel tapes programs. “I’m on the flight path of Santa Monica Airport,” he says. ‘When they fly those old WWII planes it gets really noisy around here.” Now, with the insulated-glass doors and sealed threshold, he doesn’t hear anything but his ginger cat, Mr. T, purring.
Radiant-heated concrete floors provide a warm resting place for Mr. T, who “loves lying on them when it gets cold.” A large custom desk and Eames chair and ottoman sit in the light-filled room outside the modest 4 1/2-by-7 1/2 -foot sound studio. Behind the desk, a wall-to-wall credenza and two wall-hung bookcases hold the producer’s music books and oversized box sets. On each side wall, eight-foot-high storage bays contain 3,000 of Schnabel’s 15,000-plus CD collection; Schnabel is relieved “they’ re finally all out of the boxes.”
Schnabel, who is also program director of world music for the Hollywood Bowl, says it took a bit of adjustment to work alone at home. “I felt like I was in solitary confinement for a while. And being raised with a severe case of Protestant work ethic, it felt weird not to be in a car going to an office every morning.” Now he wouldn’t have it any other way. The former L.A. County lifeguard, who still swims 50 laps a day, admits he likes “coming to work in bathing suit, T-shirt and a pair of flip-flops.” The view doesn’t hurt either. “Right now the yellow cassia tree and red canna blossoms are floating in the pool. I feel like I’m in a resort in Bali.”
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ECO-FRIENDLY
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“I hate commuting with a passion,” visual artist Blue McRight says. “Having a studio next to my house is ideal.” A walk through a courtyard of fat pumpkins, blue forest pansies and a personal shrine made of found objects constitutes the artist’s 58-foot commute to the home office space she shares with her husband, architect Warren Wagner of W3 Architects in Venice. “It’s really delightful to walk to work,” she says.
McRight’s atelier is in a modern two-story building on the front of a large lot. The couple’s small 1960s ranch-style home sits in back in a reverse paradigm of home and studio. “I wanted clients to come to my office without passing through my home,” Wagner says. “Three years ago when we were looking for a property, I told the real-estate agent ‘think big lot, little house.’ ” The office building, which faces busy Palms Boulevard, acts as a sound barrier to traffic noise and creates a courtyard between the two structures where the couple often sit and enjoy their garden.
McRight and Wagner occupy separate floors of the 2,200-square-foot space, each with their own entrances. Wagner’s first-floor architecture office is outfitted with large frosted and clear-glass doors, which pivot open onto a drought-resistant garden of Caribbean copper and paloverde trees. Upstairs, fresh air is drawn in through the doors and vented through skylights and clerestory windows in an effective, low-cost ventilation system. A conference/lunch table floats in the center of the space, which also includes a kitchen and bath. The architect’s drafting table sits behind a simple glass-topped sawhorse desk .
McRight’s northeast clerestory windows and five overhead skylights create ideal light for making artwork. “I rarely put on any lights until after dusk,” McRight says. Her computer, set atop a built-in laminate and strawboard desk with file drawers Wagner designed, sits under a large corner window. “I sometimes get distracted bird watching,” McRight says. “I can see mockingbirds, sparrows, juncos and lots of migrating songbirds up here.” Two large wood tables on wheels hold projects and move around as needed.
Wagner, an advocate of sustainable architecture, says he likes to “make the most efficient use of resources with the least impact on the environment. In designing the space, I wanted to create a space that is an example of what I believe in.” The south-facing studio building maximizes exposure to sunlight and provides both light and heat throughout the day. Water for the radiant-heated concrete floors and for the sinks and shower are heated naturally by the sun in two glass-enclosed 40-gallon water tanks. Throughout the structure the architect used recycled building materials such as homasote (made from newspapers) for walls and strawboard (made with an organic soy-based binder and straw) for cabinets.
For the architect, working at home is all about flexibility. “My arrangement has not contributed to becoming a workaholic,” he says. “I’ve tried to set up a life that integrates my life and work, but I’ve also separated my home and work space. This is the best arrangement you can have.”
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ZEN GARAGE
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Having a home office has always been a requirement for Los Angeles art dealer and real estate agent Michael Collins. But when he purchased a 1,400-square-foot bungalow in West Hollywood two years ago, he knew something had to give. The 1920s remodeled home had to function as both his living quarters and an art gallery. “The house was simply too small to have all that plus a real working office and art storage area,” Collins says. When his Range Rover couldn’t make it down the narrow driveway, he decided to sacrifice the garage for his home office.
Santa Monica architect Patrick Tighe gave the old garage and its sagging roof a major face-lift, transforming the ramshackle structure into a comfortable Zen retreat. Tighe reinforced the structure, then covered the exterior with horizontal redwood slats. He stained the original concrete slab floor darker to camouflage oil spills. “You can still see some of the stains, it’s all part of the building’s history,” the architect says. A new skylight in the raised ceiling bathes the white walled interior with natural light, which Collins says is best for viewing art. “I also like to keep it open so I can hear the rustling of the giant timber bamboo,” he says. The six-foot-tall Bambusa oldhami that Collins and Tighe planted around the perimeter of the backyard two years ago is now more than 25 feet tall. Inside, a three-quarter-high wall lined with shallow grooved shelves displaying smaller works of art partitions the 20-square-foot room. Two-thirds of the space is dedicated to the art dealer’s working office, while the remainder houses shelves for reference books, racks for art, counter space for fax and copy machines and top and bottom storage cabinets, plus Collins’ two touring bikes. A 5-foot-square steel and laminated birch partner’s desk Tighe designed serves as a large surface for viewing art. A Sony Wega TV in the ceiling corner lowers and extends on a hospital arm device when the art dealer wants to view videotapes of new artists’ work. Track lights color correct and highlight art at night, while four Bose speakers pipe in Collins’ favorite classical radio station, KMZT.
The most striking feature of the home office garage is its new, sleek steel and laminated glass sliding door. “It’s an industrial take on an old barn door,” Tighe says. “It’s actually very low-tech.” When working, Collins leaves the door open to enjoy views of his garden. When closed, the milky-green glass doors mirror the planted bamboo, ferns, papyrus, flax and red-flowering plum. The sound of water slipping over the edge of the nearby reflecting pool adds to the serene office environment. “Patrick created a very functional, tranquil retreat for me,” Collins says. “I certainly don’t feel like I’m in a garage.”
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PENTHOUSE PAVILION
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UCLA neurosurgeon Dan Kelly’s penthouse pavilion in Marina del Rey is the view-rich aerie he seeks when working at home. “My office at the hospital is very disruptive,” Kelly says. “In addition to surgery I do a lot of research. This is really the only quiet place where I can sit and do any serious writing.” Kelly added the office in 1997 when he and his wife, Marta, discovered they were going to have twins. The couple asked Culver City architect Lorcan O’Herlihy to add a separate private space to the two-story beach condominium where he could work. The architect created a 14-foot-square detached pavilion on the open rooftop terrace outside the second-floor master bedroom. A 22-foot-long overhead trellis fashioned from Douglas fir and metal links the main house to the office. Underneath, a spacious terrace serves as a place for Kelly to read and the couple’s twins, Carmen and Isabel, to play. Inside the three-sided glass office, Kelly’s office equipment sits atop the architect’s custom-designed birch desk. A wall of built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases and files holds his extensive collection of medical books and journals. A window cut into the center of the wall frames a view of downtown and opens to let in cooling ocean breezes. The twins perch on a small sofa opposite the desk to watch cartoons in the morning . “It’s become a ritual. They come in, say ‘hi’ and watch a couple of programs. I’ve learned to block out the noise,” he says. Marta also uses the office as a quiet hideaway to read and for an occasional siesta. In one corner, a free-standing glass basin allows the doctor to wash upstairs without waking his wife when he gets up before dawn to write. “I like being able to work at home,” Kelly says. “Medical technology advances-such as the new Global Care Quest system-allows me to look at laboratory reports in real time. I routinely work every Saturday and Sunday, but with the new technology I can scan patients’ MRIs or CAT scans without being in the hospital all the time. I like being able to walk downstairs and see my children or go out for a swim. The office simplifies my life.”
