Rebel has found architectural cause
Like Goldstein, his renovation of house by Lautner complicated
Our homes are reflections of ourselves, right? So it makes sense that James Goldstein’s house, hovering over a canyon atop Beverly Hills, California, is one of the most strange, fascinating and perplexing architectural projects in the world.
Goldstein, 84, a controversial figure who made his fortune investing in mobile home parks in California, may be familiar to you.
He’s that leatheryskinned, frizzy-haired guy always sitting courtside at NBA games.
He’s that guy who shows up at all the fashion shows in Paris and Milan with a couture-meets-cowboy look.
And he’s that guy who owns the Sheats-Goldstein house, a stunning landmark by architect John Lautner that fuses prehistory and futurism, solidity and weightlessness, inside and outside — a house that has been a set piece for films, for the real estate reality show “Selling Sunset,” for countless music videos and for parties thrown by the likes of Rihanna and the Kardashians.
“The word ‘subtle’ doesn’t exist for me,” Goldstein said. He’s sitting on the sprawling lower terrace of his home’s recently completed three-level addition, which is a separate compound overlooking the towers of Century City and, beyond that, the glinting bend of the Pacific coast.
He calls this undertaking the Goldstein Entertainment Complex, and it includes Goldstein’s office and a nightclub called Club James, with an infinityedge tennis court as the roof. Goldstein and his team of architects, builders, engineers and landscape designers have been working on the Lautner house addition since 2003, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Goldstein’s property, which he has been tinkering with for more than 50 years.
Goldstein bought the Sheats-Goldstein house (built in 1963 for Helen and Paul Sheats, an artist and a doctor, and their children) for $182,000 in 1972. Aghast at its cramped feel and banal plaster, stucco and Formica surfaces, he enlisted Lautner himself to make improvements. Over about 20 years, they removed cluttered divisions and installed frameless glass windows, concrete and wood ceilings, built-in leather-covered furniture and automated skylights.
“The purpose of all of this was to make the inside feel like it was outside,” said Goldstein, who describes a collaborative working relationship with Lautner until the architect’s death, at 83, in 1994. Goldstein would come up with crazy ideas, and Lautner would come up with beautiful, brave ways to pull them off.
Goldstein didn’t break step after Lautner’s death, creating, with a team led by Lautner’s associate Duncan Nicholson, a mesmerizing James Turrell Skyspace just down the hill in 2004.
“As the project progressed, I realized I loved the process,” Goldstein said. “I could already see the impact of what was happening, and before it was even finished, I started thinking about other things to do.”
He has stuck almost exclusively with the team members who created the original house, or with those who trained under them, remaining intimately involved with every aspect. Nagelmann and the home’s builder, Harry Ernst, have been working with Goldstein for more than 30 years.
“It’s about freedom,” architect Kristopher Conner said. He and partner James Perry have been leading the design of the entertainment complex since Nicholson suddenly died of cancer in 2015 (Conner and Perry had both been associates in Nicholson’s firm). Goldstein, Conner said, “is not afraid at all.”
That fearlessness is evident in the tennis court jutting off the side of a cliff, in the cantilevered balconies, eaves and furniture — and in the huge, angled frameless glass windows that seem to pull you into the Los Angeles basin below.
Perhaps more than an obsession, Goldstein’s ever-evolving home is his legacy. In 2016, he agreed to bequeath it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art after his death, along with a sizable fund for maintenance, hoping to inspire a future generation of architects.
“I want it to be open to the public as much as possible so they can learn,” Goldstein said, “whether it’s architectural students or people who know nothing about architecture.” He opens the home for tours and events regularly, a stark contrast to the proprietors of many of the city’s finest residences.
“We’re still curious to see how the transition will be implemented, but knowing it will be protected and knowing there is an endowment for its upkeep, those
are critical questions for any historic residence,” said Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the city’s architectural and cultural resources.
But, as with every aspect of Goldstein, it’s complicated. For every remarkable trait, it seems, there is a challenging one. He has no dimmer switch.
He can be impulsive and harsh, according to some who have worked for him.
“Jim has not been an easy client,” Conner admitted. He admires Goldstein’s vision but chafes when he sometimes takes credit for what Conner says are his firm’s designs — or when he changes course deep into projects.
Then there’s the way he’s paid for it all: Goldstein’s is a well-documented path of buying rent-controlled mobile (also known as manufactured) home parks throughout Southern California. He then either tries to raise rents beyond proscribed amounts or convert them to marketrate or other more profitable development models.
Goldstein sues cities that have tried to stop him, said Sunny Soltani, a partner at the California law firm Aleshire & Wynder and the attorney for the city of Carson. Soltani has battled Goldstein in court for more than a decade, both in Carson and in Palm Springs and Palm Desert.
“Once he files a lawsuit, he makes it so expensive that local agencies just settle with him,” Soltani said.
Carson Mayor Lula Davis-Holmes called Goldstein “a terrorizer of a landlord,” referring to legal disputes over his Colony Cove Mobile Estates and Carson Harbor Village.
“I own luxurious properties that are under the constraint of rent control, with rents going at probably 50% of rent levels,” Goldstein countered, “and I have many residents who can afford to pay market level that are riding the crest of rent control.”
Goldstein is aware of his detractors. But he’s much more concerned with building his house, and with his mystique.
He said he has spent tens of millions of dollars on his
compound during 50 years of continual construction, and that real estate experts have told him it would be worth more than $100 million. (Brian Linder, a real estate broker at Compass, estimated the value of the complex at $30 million, while James A. Ebert, of Ebert Appraisal Services, said it could be worth “in the $40s.”)
“Homes are inextricably linked to personalities,” said Fine of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “He is a larger-than-life individual, and his presence is very much felt when you experience the house.”
But what if preserving a house for posterity means glorifying a legacy that might be … complicated? Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which will inherit the house, said he “didn’t know much about James’ business,” adding, “We’re all navigating history of all kinds, including those of patrons.”
“We always have to do this delicate dance,” Fine said. “We’re advocates for the built environment. You may not always like the people associated with it.”