Not just a pretty space
THE notion of a living rooftop may conjure visions of a verdant European landscape, of elfin wildflowers and tall grasses swaying in the breeze, all sprouting like some sort of secret garden. So upon arrival at this home in the hills of Pacific Palisades, it comes as a surprise to find a rooftop garden that’s more like a patio lined with fieldstone and a modest grid of low-lying planters. Except for a burst of orange poppies, the flora consists of barely-there succulents and a few bunches of Mexican feather grass. Anticlimactic, some might think.
Like so many things in Los Angeles, however, there is more than meets the eye.
The patio actually serves as the roof of a carefully constructed recording studio built into the bedrock below. With its shallow soil bed and stone pavers, the rooftop garden cuts down on the heating and cooling costs while dampening sound entering or exiting the studio.
The homeowners, composers and musicians Jeff Fair and Starr Parodi, best known for their work scoring movie trailers and television shows, moved here 10 years ago with the plan of adding a place to record music.
“The easiest thing to do would be to build up,” Parodi says, “but we would have had to move out and set up a studio somewhere else.” They also needed a spot for Parodi’s prized piano, a black beauty once used to record 1930s MGM musicals.
Space became an even bigger issue when the couple had their first child. The lone spare bedroom was already crammed with recording equipment, including a sound mixer that took up most of one wall.
“We always had two dogs in our bedroom and all of our daughter’s stuff in the living room, and we were recording at all hours of the day and night,” Parodi says. “There would always be dog snoring in the background.”
They had no choice but to build a separate studio. Because the home is on a hillside, the constraints were obvious, project architect Michael Blatt says.
“We discussed a number of different locations for the studio, and Starr was adamant that she didn’t want to give up any garden space,” he says.
They settled on building into the hillside below.
“Though digging into a hillside and putting in retaining walls is a fairly expensive way of construction,” Blatt says, “it makes for good soundproofing.”
And it makes for a good green roof, though that wasn’t always the plan.
“It was always going to be a deck of some kind,” Fair says, adding that after extensive research, he realized that traditional wood decking would have to be pulled off in 15 to 20 years when the roofing underneath needed replacement.
“We wanted something more permanent,” he says. “We wanted to do something that would keep our energy bill down and be environmentally sound. We already knew that digging into the hill would provide soundproofing but later realized there could be added benefits.”
A green roof can provide a natural barrier not only to sound waves, but also to heat waves.
“You wouldn’t believe the difference in how much it costs to run the air conditioning in the house as compared to the studio. It’s amazing,” Parodi says.
“Roof temperatures here can be around 125 to 130 degrees in the summer, and this never gets above 85 degrees,” Fair says.
The roof’s construction is not that much different from a standard roof, except for proper drainage and added structural support to accommodate the soil’s weight.
“The first thing they did was put down six or seven layers of roofing material and then flooded the roof for a weekend to test the waterproofing,” Fair says. After establishing the seal, they installed a drainage mat, laid down a fabric filter that allows water (but not soil) to pass through, and then spread the dirt. Moisture flows into drains hidden underneath river rocks.
Dirt had to weigh less than four pounds per square inch saturated, requiring two types of lighter-weight soil.
“Planting was a real challenge because the soil is only 2 or 3 inches deep in places,” Fair says. The shallow garden, which runs about 4 inches at its deepest, limits the kind of plants the couple can plant. After much experimentation, Fair and Parodi found that small succulents such as sedum thrived best, as did poppies and ornamental grasses. The only maintenance, according to Fair, is watering every three or four days.
“We enjoy gardening,” he says, “but it isn’t our first priority on the weekend.”
They would much prefer to spend their time cozying up to the outdoor fireplace, which cuts the chill of ocean breezes at night and helps the space feel more like a second living room, complete with stars and moonlight.
