Transformers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles director Michael Bay can conjure exquisite feats of sound and fury, but he can't make them signify anything, and that's his approach to building houses too, which he tells Architectural Digest is just like producing "an epic movie, with himself, naturally, in the director's chair."
In 2009, Bay paid $10.9 million for a lovely and architecturaly significant Mid-Century Modern house on Bel Air Road, built in 1951 for Earle and Marion Jorgensen, close friends of the Reagans. He did what he does best and destroyed the thing, then spent the next five years or so building the kind of house you'd expect out of Michael Bay, overseeing the project in the exact way you'd expect out of Michael Bay.
The idea for the flashy hillside-hugging house came from Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture + Design ("I looked at the first sketch Chad [Oppenheim] showed me and said, 'That's the house I want!' "), but was executed by Mark Rios of Los Angeles firm Rios Clementi Hale. Bay lives in Miami, but he wanted this place "for parties and relaxation." Here are things to know about building a house with Michael Bay:
· "Everyone involved in the project said this was the toughest thing they've ever built," according to Bay.
· "I wanted the house to have the feel of a resort."
· Due to the architecture's complexity and the challenges of the steep, nearly eight-acre lotâ€"not to mention Bay's Hollywood-honed inclination to analyze every aspect of an experienceâ€"…
· …the director enlisted the help of a gaming software company to create an advanced digital model. So prior to construction Bay was able to explore sight lines, lig
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