Photos by Randall Cordero & Blue Fier
Feature: House Proud: House of Simple Pleasures
March 1, 2004
In 1993, when CurtCo Robb Media Creative Director Robert Ross purchased his
house in Southern California, it was not the exquisite, art-filled castle on
manicured grounds that it is today. Rather, he recalls, it was a
“poured-in-place concrete atrocity,” one of several mushroom-shaped silos that a
developer had built on spec in the Woodland Hills neighborhood in the 1980s.
Weeds covered the property, which had belonged to a former platinum
record–earning rock musician who had allowed it to go into foreclosure
rather than relinquish his most cherished possession: a Lamborghini.
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The round house. (Click image to enlarge)Los Angeles architect Craig Townsend had expected Ross to buy empty land and build his dream house, so he was startled when he saw the structure Ross expected him to adapt. “I thought he was out of his mind,” Townsend says. After getting over his initial shock, however, Townsend began to see the structure’s potential. In a city like Los Angeles, where fantasy architecture abounds—Norman castles next to modernist jewels next to scale models of Versailles—living in a mushroom is not that bizarre. Townsend rose to the challenge, preparing sketches and beginning the transformation.
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A Josef Hoffmann rug defines the open-plan second
floor. The kitchen is
concealed behind a monolithic cabinet. (Click image to enlarge)The first step was to gut the entire interior. The home’s 1,400 square feet had been carved into small, undistinguished rooms, like slices of a pie. The ceilings were covered with acoustical cottage cheese, which was immediately scraped off. But there were only so many changes Townsend could make. Because the plumbing was embedded in concrete, it could not easily be altered. Townsend had to work with existing outlets. The windows were also poured in place, so he could not conveniently whittle out new ones. He could, however, obstruct some, which he did to create the library Ross required for his extensive collection of art and architecture books. Appropriately, the library contains lush wood cabinets modeled on designs by early-20th-century Viennese architect Josef Hoffmann, whose work emphasized rich materials and craftsmanship as a reaction against shoddy, mass-produced objects.
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Study off
the main room. (Click image to enlarge)Townsend’s other mandate was to accommodate Ross’ taste and eccentricities, or as Ross puts it, to “create a pleasant and contemplative space for sleeping, reading and listening to music.” This did not include plans for an extensive cooking area. With an under-the-counter refrigerator and touch-latch cabinets that form a seamless paneled wall, the kitchen blends into the living area around it. “I’ve cooked in the kitchen once since I’ve lived in the house,” Ross says. “One of my only pleasures is going out to eat.”
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