An eye for modern beauty
LOS ANGELES — Megan Schoenbachler is distracted. While giving a tour of her family’s house in Venice, Calif., she notices the light and the angle from the second- floor master bathroom, looking over the courtyard hot tub and toward the kitchen on the first floor.
“That would make a great shot,” she suggests to a newspaper photographer, gesturing to her husband down below in the kitchen. “Open the window, Jonathan,” she says.
The photographer tries the picture. Green ferns and the rustic spa are reflected in glass. Jonathan Sela is outlined by a charcoal grey frame around the window. The house’s indoor- outdoor beauty comes through perfectly.
The shot offers a hint of how Schoenbachler, a photographer, and Sela, a cinematographer, applied their eye during the house- building process. Although the couple turned to architectural firm Marmol Radziner to guide the design, their house is still very much their vision: indoor- outdoor, family friendly, modern but warm and inviting.
The couple were inspired to build a new house after they fell in love with architect Ron Radziner’s home. After remodelling two houses in Venice — one Spanish, the other ranch — the couple knew that this time they wanted something modern for their family.
On a narrow lot, the house has the qualities typical of the work by Marmol Radziner — efficient, modern, striking in its apparent simplicity — as well as a lush landscape that brings some softness to all the clean lines.
From the beginning, the couple sought to create a sense of warmth through a connection to the environment, or as architect Leo Marmol says, “a rougher texture,” much like the imperfect beauty that you see in nature, not to mention life.
Essentially working from the ground up, the couple began by choosing subdued colours and finishes for warmth. Siding composed of four woods from dismantled barns in Pennsylvania wraps interior walls, ceilings and the exterior. Cork flooring upstairs and walnut cabinetry soften the home’s geometric forms and give the house a comfortable vibe.
“Any time that we had to make a decision about something that could be either super modern and possibly sterile, we consciously discussed how to avoid that, so we could always feel comfortable in an ultra- modern home,” Schoenbachler says.
The first floor is a single continuous family area: living room, dining room and, offset by a couple of steps, the kitchen. It’s minimally furnished with a few mid- century- style couches and a solid wall of cabinets to contain the clutter of books, antiques and a television. What was going to be a wine cabinet by the dining area became open shelving for kids’ toys, adding a casual sensibility to the modern architecture.
The concrete floor is stained a warm brown and bronze, and steel stairs are softened by views of water and flora beyond. Sliding glass doors along the dining area open to a pool on one side and a courtyard on the other, the landscape planted with the ferns, Japanese maple and flowering redbud.
Wooden paths lead to a spa, an outdoor shower and vegetable planters at the rear of the house — another unexpected touch.