Architect Richard Landry represents so many of the worst things about Los Angeles and America, and if the plebs knew more about what he was up to, it could just be the thing to finally set them to the barricades. Landry's métier is the enormous, private megamansion, built behind gates (and often within gated communities) on huge swaths of land, and packed with absurd features like bowling alleys, indoor basketball courts, and full spas that ensure that their rich owners will never have to interact with the hoi polloi. His recent project for Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady in gated Brentwood Country Estates literally has a moat. Meanwhile, he's just finishing up Mark Wahlberg's 30,000-square-foot palace in Beverly Park, the gated community known for its gigantic parcels and gauche megamansions (Landry has been prolific in the neighborhood). To mark the occasion, Landry revealed his complete lack of perspective to The Hollywood Reporter:
-- "There are no ginormous rooms here -- there's no ballroom, no bowling alley, no indoor basketball court. I've done most of those kinds of things in other projects, but here it's really a good traditional family house with no craziness to it," he says about the 30,000-square-foot house that has a theater, wine cellar, "large-scale gym," double-height library, putting green, pool with waterfall, and loggia with limestone floors.
-- "My goal always has to go with finding the right proportions. It is not about building bigger and bigger homes," says the man who is building a "200,000-square-foot French-style single-family home near Shanghai and a 250,000-square-foot, eight-building, hypermodern compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia," as well as a "high-end subdivision in Qingdao, China, that will include 40 homes that will be 25,000 square feet each."
-- And, just: "I am just as passionate about smaller projects, and we are still doing many of them ... We just finished a 4,000-square-foot guest cottage in Malibu. It was just a little folly, and that is just as fun for me."
· Hot Hollywood Architect Finishes Mark Wahlberg's 30,000-Square-Foot Beverly Hills French Manor [THR]
· Richard Landry Archives [Curbed LA]
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