Industrial Zen
Japanese artist Yasuko Bush’s dream house was “Bauhaus meets minimalism with a flavor of Zen,” she recalls, laughing. “My husband’s dream,” she adds, “was to retire to California and watch sunsets slowly slip into the ocean while drinking a very dry martini.”
In pursuit of those visions, the Boston-based couple purchased a two-story, Mediterranean-style home 11 years ago on a trip out West. Set above Laguna Beach, their 85-by-150-foot double lot overlooks the beach below and the dramatic sweep of coastline from Laguna Niguel to Palos Verdes.
Initially, the artist and her husband, a retired executive, had planned to add only a combined guest house and art studio, says Laguna Beach architect Tim Nicol. But their home was light-years from the modern designs they admired by architects Tadao Ando, Rem Koolhaas and Richard Meier. Nicol says he told the couple that if they built the guest house they wanted, they would spend all their time in it. So he suggested building a new home instead.
Construction began in the late ‘90s, with the couple overseeing all aspects of their new home. “They provided a well-thought-out program detailing ... the space they required and how they lived, the function of each room and the light required,” Nicol says. “They knew exactly what they wanted.”
One thing Osaka-born Bush didn’t want was a traditional Japanese home with sliding shoji screens. The artist attended the Kyoto Institute of Technology, founded by a Bauhaus graduate. “Since that time I have Bauhaus in my blood,” she says. “I wanted the house to express a Japanese sensibility using industrial materials.”
The three-story home of split-face concrete block and smooth stucco is set against a steep hillside. The garden has an Eastern tone with plantings of pine, bamboo and plum, a trio the Japanese consider a good omen and a symbol of harmony. The owners planted a large bodhi tree--Buddha is said to have received enlightenment under one--and placed a simple wood seat nearby on which to sit and contemplate. California poppies, soft fescue grasses and other Southern California natives cover the hillside.
Inside the 5,100-square-foot home that Bush calls “industrial Zen,” the steel staircase acts as a spine to connect the floors. Half a level below the street and carport is the main entrance and a large deck with a built-in fireplace. Nearby is an elevator “for when we get too old to climb the stairs,” she says. Directly below the entrance are the main living quarters, with an open-plan living room, dining room, kitchen and laundry area and a separate master bedroom suite. A guest bedroom and bath, as well as her husband’s office and the media room, are one level down; the bottom floor is reserved for Bush’s art studio.
Each level offers views and garden access. Telescoping doors slide and stack to open the living and dining rooms to a 48-foot deck that runs the length of the home. In the kitchen, a sliding pocket door opens the room to a bamboo-lined patio. Both the master and guest bedrooms open onto terraces. “Nature is right outside the door,” Bush says. “It’s a very Japanese concept.”
A well-edited mix of modern European furnishings and custom pieces designed by the artist fill the interior. Contractor Al Oligino of Oligino Construction Services in Laguna Beach realized many of Bush’s unusual design requests, including the master bedroom’s acid-washed zinc headboard and night tables, the powder room’s stainless-steel floor and the living room’s minimalist gas firebox filled with black lava chips, set in drywall. “They challenged us with a lot of unique ideas,” he says. “Everyone who worked on the home knew they were involved in something special.”
Gallery-white walls and gray-stained maple floors create a neutral foil for the couple’s extensive art collection. A mix of Occidental and Oriental art, it includes a Japanese calligraphy poem by Bush’s grandfather, a neo-Confucian scholar; pieces by contemporary American artists; and her own artwork. “I wanted the house to be a blank canvas with the art the center of attention.”
The house has an abundance of built-in cabinetry for art storage, in keeping with the traditional Japanese home in which objects are stored in chests and brought out according to the season or for special occasions. “I don’t want to hang everything we have,” Bush says. “I prefer to rotate pieces.”
Bush looks at the house and the five years of planning and building as one long art project. “I’m glad it’s done,” she says. “Now we have time to sit and watch California’s gorgeous sunsets.”