This past weekend the AIA/LA opened up four houses for its first spring home tour, "East and West of 405" (that theme was taken pretty liberally). Today we check out House #2, Cory Buckner's Brentwood Residence (where else? in Brentwood).
Photos by Elizabeth Daniels Cory Buckner's Brentwood Residence pokes just six feet above street level in Brentwood's famous Crestwood Hills (a cooperatively-built neighborhood designed by architects A. Quincy Jones, Whitney R. Smith, and structural engineer Edgardo Contini). Below lies more than 4,000 square feet of house and a separate studio down at the bottom of the lot. The living room walls were made especially high for the painter-owner's art collection. Buckner, the only woman represented on this weekend's tour, actually lives down the street in one of the original Crestwood houses, won an award for her preservation work there, and has written a book on Jones.
Buckner writes about the Brentwood Residence: "The design of the house is very influenced by the neighboring modernist homes...In addition to the clerestories, all of the MHA [Mutual Housing Association, Crestwood's original name] houses featured plentiful glass, which celebrated the connection of indoor and outdoor space. Exposed materials such as concrete block, redwood siding, and plywood were used throughout the original MHA houses; the Brentwood House featured cedar siding, glass walls and exposed concrete that blend well with its neighbors."
The AIA also asked Buckner about the theme of the tour, "East and West of 405," and she writes that the freeway is partially responsible for the massive mansionization of the westside: "Lacking a cultural center on the Westside and denied access to the livelier areas on the Eastside, has forced Westsiders into a more insular lifestyle; the single family home has become the source of entertainment. In the last decade, the proliferation of estates with gourmet kitchens, screening rooms, pools, spas, and vast areas for entertainment, has changed the character of many communities."
· Brentwood Residence [Cory Buckner Architects]
· Rick Leslie's Many-Layered Latimer Residence in Rustic Canyon [Curbed LA]
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