A careful update of a 1960s Tarzana architectural gem

Janna Levenstein’s 1950s house was a maze of small, dark rooms. With the help of a draftsman, UCLA architecture student, Google’s free SketchUp software and her contractor, Levenstein turned the space into a bright, sleek, indoor-outdoor living space where every room opens onto nature. The home’s new modern look comes partly from the immense amount of glass she installed.
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Architects Alice Fung and Michael Blatt help homeowners make the most of a 1963 Gregory Ain design. Modernist box? Try hexagon.

The spirit of Ains original design clearly endures. Here, the colored panels and casement windows at the rear of the house.
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The Simmonses tracked down original plans for their house from the Architecture and Design Collection of the University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara. Guided with these documents, Fung and Blatt added elements that Ain had planned for the house but had never built. Among the additions: this leaf for a table that Ain sketched as a triangle cantilevered from the wall.
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Jerry Simmons spent months looking for the right materials for the remodel, including the same kind of combed plywood that Ain originally used for the eaves.
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The remodeled master bedroom is lined with simple cork flooring, in keeping with the home’s 1960s origin.
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Built-ins made of ash line the new master suite.
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The master suites hexagon a motif that is unlike any that Ain employed in his other houses, architect Alice Fung says. Our approach was neither to ignore what he did nor to think exactly how he would have done it, she says. We took the angles and the ideas that we thought were stronger and interpreted them.
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