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TOM and
Judy Berg startled their architect at the first meeting
by asking him to design a dwelling of only 1,100 square
feet for a vacant lot in Santa Monica.
“It was
the first time that clients had asked me to minimize the
size of the house rather than make things larger,”
Michael W. Folonis says of the meeting six years ago.
The
empty-nesters had definite ideas about their dream
house.
At that
meeting, Tom, a retired lawyer, presented a sketch he
had made of a dumbbell-shaped complex with three
buildings: a master bedroom suite and separate guest
quarters connected by an art gallery.
“I’ve
never experienced a client coming to me with such a
clear vision of what they were seeking,” says Folonis,
who is based in Santa Monica.
The
Bergs, having left behind a 5,000-square-foot,
Italianate-style house built in the 1880s in
Janesville, Wisconsin,
wanted to simplify their life. Enough of the ornate
Victorian home, let alone the Wisconsin winters. They
wanted something different when they moved to Los
Angeles in 1998.
Although
the couple did not ask for a Modern style, Judy’s deep
interest in architecture led them to seek out Folonis,
based on his published work. The resulting house is a
glass-lined essence of Minimalist Modernism—a good fit
for a couple wishing to divest themselves of unnecessary
things, such as closets. “If you have closets, you start
keeping stuff,” Tom says.
Like
many couples, they didn’t always agree or share tastes.
Though Tom is a frugal Midwesterner, Judy “wanted the
best in everything, especially in expensive fixtures and
details,” says Tom, who at the time had no idea how
life’s changes would later affect the final design.
The
house did stay small (the design grew to 1,300 square
feet), but the Berg residence achieves richness through the use
of industrial materials, such as steel, concrete block
and polished concrete floors. Floor-to-ceiling glass
makes the inner courtyard visible to all parts of the
house, which has “more glass than nearly any other house
around here,” Tom says.
The
architect combined his clients’ request for three
buildings into a single structure, for cost reasons.
Otherwise, the house as built is remarkably close to
Tom’s original drawing. At the north end is a compact
master suite that feels almost like an efficiency
apartment on two levels, with a sitting room and kitchen
on the ground floor and master bed and bath on the
second. A long gallery-hallway, roughly 10 feet wide,
stretches 35 feet south to a guest bedroom and bath.
A
classic California Modernist touch is the close
relationship between indoor and outdoor spaces,
particularly the continuity between the courtyard and
the gallery. The architect says the gallery is an
extension of the courtyard. Whenever Folonis stops by
the house, Tom says, he always opens the doors of the
gallery to combine the indoor and outdoor spaces into a
single area.
The
centrality of the courtyard, as well as its southeast
orientation, is part of a carefully considered example
of passive solar design, according to Folonis. The
concrete of the courtyard and the interior concrete
floor act together as a “heat sink” to absorb the
powerful sunlight, while a large overhang shades a
portion of the courtyard, as well as the
gallery/hallway.
The
architect says he likes the radical simplicity of the
house, calling it a “living diagram.” To further that
sense of clear organization, Folonis used certain
materials consistently for certain features of the
house. Walls are concrete block and stairs are steel.
The
house, which sits on a steep slope, changes levels
twice, each time marked by limestone steps that contrast
luminously with the gray concrete floors. To add privacy
to the living area, Folonis added walls of semiopaque
glass on either side of the long hallway.
In the
1990s Judy developed a passion for landscaping and
planted 13 gardens around the Janesville property.
Framed with tall grasses and other drought-tolerant
plants, the courtyard in the Santa Monica house was
intended as a showplace for Judy’s considerable gifts as
a garden designer. Her horticultural skills so impressed
Folonis that he hired Judy as a landscape designer on
several other residential projects.
Enthusiastic about the construction, the couple walked
almost daily from their rented apartment in
Venice
to check on the progress of the house. Judy had already
planted part of the new garden, including tall grasses
for the green spaces bordering the
courtyard.
One day
after returning from their daily visit, she collapsed.
“She
never got to live in the house,” says Tom ruefully of
his wife, who died from a heart attack that day in 2002.
The
dream house, completed a few months later, became a nest
for one. The widower is occasionally visited by his
daughter, her husband and their children. Tom
acknowledges that the house, as completed, may not
reflect all of Judy’s original intentions. “She never
would have let me cut those things out,” he says,
referring to the orders he canceled for some costly
fixtures.
On
display in the gallery is Judy’s large collection of
paintings, lithographs, pottery and handblown glass. Tom
still grumps that she didn’t reveal the full price of
some of the gallery pieces. “She would show me the
checks she used to buy them, without telling me that she
paid half the price in cash.”
The
house is full of Judy’s books on architecture, one of
many artistic pursuits in which she immersed herself,
Tom says. She had “many bees in her bonnet,” says their
daughter, Martha Weninger of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Not
overly reverential toward the formality of his living
space, Tom has made the house accommodate his solitary
comforts, such as moving a sofa into the gallery for TV
watching, without much effect on the overall design.
Nearby,
an alcove off the gallery, originally used as a home
office, is now filled entirely with a bed, hidden by an
improvised pink curtain. Even if not part of the
original scheme, the alcove has become a makeshift
bedroom for Tom. He gives the master suite to his
daughter and son-in-law during their visits, while the
grandchildren occupy the guest suite. Tom uses a small
cloth armoire to store his clothes. A small cabinet atop
a kitchen counter top suffices as his pantry.
Although
he doubts Judy would have agreed with all his decisions,
Tom says she would be pleased with the overall result.
“I think she would have approved. It’s a good house.” |
