Yesterday, we hit a couple of homes on the Dwell on Design house tour on the Westside. The self driving tour let participants take their time at each home and decide what was worth stopping at and what wasn't. Our first stop was the Ray Kappe residence in the Pacific Palisades. The home is like a multi-level treehouse sitting amongst mature trees and a running brook that goes under the house. While not necessarily dazzling, the home had a great lived in feel. Maybe we're becoming more jaded, but the newer homes just don't do it for us anymore. The real interest of these home tours is seeing how other people live, using their space and adapting it to their personal needs and quirks. The Kappe house was interesting in that regard.
Kappe and his wife have stacked books all over the place and filled up the place with little knick knacks and furniture that looks straight out of 1967 (the year the home was built). But it's charming in a way. Like a time capsule, or maybe your grandparent's home. Kappe still has his drafting table and work space in one corner of the home with a couple of models we snapped pictures of. The home is full of hidden spaces and corners that makes it feel much bigger than it actually is. It also felt a bit dangerous (but in a good way), as if you needed to study the home in order to understand how to traverse the interconnected levels, knowing where to step and where not to step. It's hard to explain. Good job, Ray Kappe. On our list of "Notes to self": No flat screen tv's anywhere, bathroom and shower skylights, avocado green carpeting and blue chairs, lack of railings, house can be both bright and dark depending on where you stand.
Our next stop on the tour was the King Residence in Santa Monica. We wanted to like this one, honestly. Out of the six homes on the tour, this looked like the second most interesting. After being required to remove our shoes and then being told we weren't allowed to take pictures, we were still holding out hope. It was nice, but lacked warmth. Hopefully they'll put it on a house tour in a couple of years when we can see it as a lived in space, not just a half-finished showcase space.
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