Open Space | The Tyler Residence, John Lautner (1950)

I discovered this house by accident, I was looking for a home my agent called me one day and she said I found your house it's in a part of town you don't want to live in and let's go look at it because you're gonna buy it and when I saw it for the first time it rekindled in me a natural love for mid-century modern architecture. The architect is John Lautner a storied architect of mid-century modern specializing in small and large homes in and around Los Angeles as well as other cities and countries. John Lautner designed this house in 1953 like by the time he got here the maturity of his work was really it had really grown and it flourished I feel like this house feels like it could have been designed at any point in his career before or after 1953. I was aware of Lautner's work not by name but I was aware of the Chemisphere house and the Garcia house because of the movie Body Double and the movie Lethal Weapon 2 but I did not know it was the same architect and so I was unaware of his work in general. The house was built for a man named Ted Tyler I understand that he lived here with his family. The original architecture of the house ended this is an outdoor deck originally and later in the 50s as I understand it it was enclosed with the enthusiasm of John Lautner. When the house was originally smaller because this was an outdoor deck the area over here would have been the living room and then the kitchen has a little table that pivots out and that was where the family would eat dinner. About two years after I bought this house I began a complete and total restoration. The condition I found it in was quite beaten. I did a full restoration two years after I bought it. I consulted with the Lautner associates in the form of Helena Arouet who was a Lautner associate at the end of his career and Frank Escher who is an archivist of the Lautner papers and I hired a wonderful architect who had worked for Ray Cappy named Tracy Stone and I hired the most amazing contractor I've ever run across in my life a man named Sid Loving. Sid said to me that he wanted to find a single project where he could return to his craft and and I was fortunate enough that this is the project he did. He spent 15 months here he was here every day and in every way he could he made choices or inspired choices that turned into amazing craftsmanship throughout the entire house and I'm forever grateful for the quality of the work that he did. To buy my first house and have it be a house that I would own I bought it nearly 30 years ago and for me to found a place like this to have been in the right place at the right time and been successful buying it has just been one of the luckiest things that's ever happened to me. It's a house that feels very much connected to nature and everywhere you look it's both outdoors and private and it inspired me every day as a creative professionally I felt like I was inspired every day that I was here to to keep my eyes open to the world around me and to to enjoy everything that I might be exposed to or see and this house was sort of the foundation of that. Living in a piece of architecture like this has made a profound impact on my life. Every day that I spend in this house reveals something to me or reminds me of something of value. It makes me value each moment. It reminds me of the spirit of creativity part of all of us. Being in this house remind me of how wonderful we can be and it reminds me of how wonderful the world around us can be. I've got a breeze on me right now and there's a bird chirping over my shoulder and I can see peripherally the leaves are moving because of the breeze and you know the air is fresh and the light is gorgeous and everywhere I look I see things that please me and that happiness has been very much because of the experience of being sheltered by this open space. I feel really lucky that I was able to take care of this house and I was able to fully restore it. It was in such bad shape that it could have just as easily found its way into the hands of someone who would have just taken it down and put another house here. And through good fortune and other factors I was able to totally restore this house and build it to standards that means it's gonna outlast me. It's gonna be here long after I'm gone and I feel deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to make this house sustainable for the future and the incredible amount of joy I've had in this home makes me feel really optimistic that it fills other people's hearts with joy in the years that come in the decades and decades that come after me.