The Retreat

Austrian-born Michael Kienzl and his French wife Amelia are gypsy spirits who like nothing better than to pick up and go--Cappadocia, Macao, Jerusalem, Sharm al-Sheikh, St. Lucia. When friends invited them to their weekend Mexican home six years ago, they were delighted to explore south of the border.

They stayed in their friends’ home at Playa La Mision, a community of mostly expat Americans who have been renting and living in colorful Mexican bungalows along the coast since the ‘60s. (The area’s name derives from an old Spanish mission now in ruins about 10 minutes down the old road toward Ensenada.) They were enchanted by the area’s history and its seaside charm.

“Each time we crossed the border,” recalls Moroccan-born Amelia, now a U.S. citizen, “I felt so much freedom. Not that there is not freedom in the U.S., I don’t mean that . . . but there are less rules and obligations. If I don’t want to put on my seat belt I don’t have to . . . we can do what we like. It’s such a stress-free life in Mexico.”

Every three months for the next 21/2 years they headed south from their Spanish duplex in the Carthay Circle neighborhood of L.A. to stay at a rental property next door to their friends’ home. One day they asked the owners if they would consider selling it, and a deal was struck.

The couple bought the fixer-upper in 2004 as a second home, paying $145,000, then putting $200,000 into renovation. Kienzl was the general contractor. Rising at 4 a.m. once a week, he drove to meet the workers by 7:30 a.m., then often went to work in L.A. the same day. “We gutted it completely,” he says. “The only thing left standing were the stone walls.”

They hired local architect and engineer Hugo Ramirez to execute the plans for a comfortable 2,500-square-foot trilevel home drawn up by Kienzl’s Argentinean architect friend, Martin Casteran. The entrance, off an enclosed courtyard, leads to the first floor with its three bedrooms and two baths. A circular concrete and stone staircase takes you to a second-floor Moroccan-style studio. A nearby pantry leads to the three-car garage. The top floor, an open-plan layout with a kitchen, dining and living room, features a terrace that wraps around the front of the house and offers spectacular views of the Pacific. Most evenings, it’s where you’ll find the Kienzls, French doors thrown wide. “We often sit and read, have a drink or simply watch for dolphins,” says Amelia. They often see horseback riders galloping through the surf on the beach below.

Although Michael Kienzl, president of Bradco Kitchens & Baths in L.A., now adores his weekend home, he was sometimes frustrated during the renovation process--”a difficult period to weather no matter what country you’re in,” he says. The place often was a mess, with $400 Italian faucets out of their boxes, parts scattered and covered with dust, paint cans and brushes atop new tiles. “The Austrian in me wanted to impose some order. I used to tell them: ‘This familia of faucets goes here, that familia of paints and brushes goes over there.’ But it never really worked,” he says, laughing at the memory.

He sometimes returned after a week to find custom doors installed incorrectly or stairs set at different heights. Then there was the shower floor that sloped away from the drain. They found the error only after they tried to bathe. “The water ran out the door,” he recalls. “Then . . . one construction worker connected the clothes dryer exhaust to the vent in the bathroom and forgot to vent both to the outside. It turned into a steam shower.”

Yet when it came to tile and brick work, the Mexican craftsmen proved to be masters. For example, the couple decided to install a lofty brick cupola instead of the skylight called for in the original plans. They brought in a crane to lift the heavy steel needed to hold the weight of the bricks, and Kienzl was pleased when the workers finished that very complicated job in less than three weeks. And he loves his tiles. Terracotta pavers and stone floors are used throughout the house. One downstairs floor resembles a basket weave with bluish-green glass tile inserts, and in the living room, limestone tiles of varying sizes are set in a repeating pattern. “The tile work is super,” says Kienzl. “You just want to make sure the floor slopes toward the drain in the bathrooms.” *

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The Comps

Location: Playa La Mision

Size: 2,500 square feet

mexican cost: $145,000, plus $200,000 in improvements. (Fixer-uppers on the same beach sell for $450,000 to $900,000.)

Redondo Beach Cost: $1.6 million to $3 million

Buying arrangement: The deed is held in trust by Banco Santander Serafin, with the buyers given a 50-year lease that’s renewable for another 50 years.

Advice: “My Mexican building motto--also the same as for my kitchen showroom--keep it simple, stupid.”

--Michael Kienzl

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see page 72 for resource guide