Julius Shulman would have been 100 yesterday, and to celebrate the MAK Center let hundreds of people into a few of the many houses the photographer helped make famous. We're not about to try to compete with Shulman, so we're just sharing a few of the elements his photographs might not have caught. Today we have a Maston, a Neutra, and a Soriano. Tomorrow: a Schindler, a Koenig, and another Neutra.
Hillside House, Carl Maston, 1962: Maston isn't a name we hear a lot, he never quite blew up like your Schindlers or Neutras. Maston built the Hillside House above Sunset Plaza for his own family, with two bedrooms (now one) on the second floor above a garage, and common areas on the third floor. A docent told us the house was a Sunset Strip party house for a time, but was restored by the most recent owner after he discovered Shulman photographs while cleaning the house out.
Kun House, Richard Neutra, 1936: From the MAK Center: "At the invitation of a friend who was a draftsman for Neutra on site for final inspections, Shulman visited the freshly completed structure and tooks photos with his vest pocket camera..." The photos got to Neutra, Neutra passed them to his colleagues, and Shulman had a career on his hands. Back then the hillside below the house was utterly bare, but now it's landscaped all the way down to a thick bamboo curtain at the bottom. The Laurel Canyon property is currently being renovated by serial preservationist James Rega.
Shulman House, Raphael Soriano, 1947-50: If you were Julius Shulman, wouldn't you get a different architect to design each room of your house? That's what he wanted to do with these two acres in Laurel Canyon, but Soriano convinced him it would never work and ended up getting the commission himself. The living space isn't huge--it's the many patios and gardens that dominate, along with Shulman's large office at the front of the house. The Shulman is on the market now, asking $2.355 million.
· Carl Maston Archives [Curbed LA]
· Home Remedies [Los Angeles]
· Slight Chop For Julius Shulman's Hollywood Hills Soriano [Curbed LA]
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