With an interest in design and innovation, producer and art collector client David Johnson, along with Rios Clementi Hale Studios and The Hammer Group, transformed a landmarked 1880s Victorian house overlooking Santa Monica bay into vibrant, art-filled offices. Monochromatic palettes streamline the Victorian details, and highlight the extensive contemporary art collection curated by Johnson, who is co-Chair of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The architecture, interiors, and landscape throughout the project continually juxtapose, blend, and contrast notions of the historical with the contemporary.
From the street-front, the dark gray building (a color consistent with the Queen Anne-style of the building) sits behind a colorful front yard regularly replanted with rows of bright perennials. The front yard is intended to serve the community as a pedestrian-friendly, changing work of art. White horizontal fence, railings, and exterior accents add to the tension between geometric linearity and Victorian exuberance. Beneath deep sky-blue painted eaves sit bright fuchsia rocking chairs—another mixing of historic form with a contemporary feel.
Stark white interiors contrast with the dark exterior walls. Accents of color, including the “blue sky” of the front porch, are derived from the pallet of Santa Barbara painter, Hank Pitcher, who perfectly captures the beach and surf hues of this particular climate and place. The blue, pink and purple leather covering the Eames conference chairs is borrowed from images in Pitcher’s book. Original fireplaces are lacquered bright white, and the original fireboxes are covered in white-painted glass. Decorative moldings, chair rails, newel posts, balustrades, spandrels, and paneling also match the wall color to maintain their essence. Concealed mechanical systems and state-of-the-art lighting and controls are integrated into a museum-quality set of rooms. Existing stained-oak flooring throughout was refinished, creating a dark neutral background for the art and furnishings.
The carriage house—which accommodates open office area and executive office—features a projector window that frames the third-floor ocean view, turning a simple architectural element into a sculptural device. Like the art collection, the interiors are designed to appear as a series of functional installations against the neutral, gallery-like, background. Each piece of furniture was selected for qualities that include innovative design, construction, form, materials and historic or cultural significance.
Nestled in a private court between the historic main house and back house, a 16 foot square marble plinth floats 6 inches above the ground. Like the bands of flowers in the front yard, the plinth, both in material and detail, is less a landscape then it is a sculpture to be viewed and occupied. As Lawrence Weiner’s text (applied to the back house) implies, “ALL OF THE ABOVE” extends the subject of the work of art from the object to the world beyond.