1980s modern by Ray Kappe seeks $5.5M in Pacific Palisades

Atop a long driveway in Pacific Palisades’s Rustic Canyon neighborhood, this Ray Kappe contemporary is a monument to concrete, glass, and steel. Leaning comfortably against a hill, the 1980-built house is nestled into its environment like a modern treehouse.

The 3,500-square-foot house is spread across three levels, and fronted by a series of stacked, rounded balconies. A cut-out allows a tree on the hill to grow unobstructed. Glass-block accents, roofs of glass, and a walled glass master bedroom ensure that the connection to the outdoors is present everywhere in the four-bedroom, four-bath house.

A peaceful quality runs through the dwelling, says listing agent Rosanne Howard of Sotheby’s International Realty. When you’re in the house, “you get the feeling you’re in the trees, in nature. It feels like you could reach out and touch the trees,” Howard says.

Kappe himself lived in Rustic Canyon, not far from this location, and designed more than 100 residences during the decades-long span of his career. The founder of the architecture school SCI-Arc and renowned modernist architect died in November.

The residence at 762 Latimer Road is listed for $5.5 million.