Modern Beautiful Home with Reflecting Ponds, California






About Horst Architects




Architecture Horst Architects
Project THE STRAND
Location California, United States
Photography John Ellis

This AIA award winning home resides at the Strand in Dana Point, California. A series of overlapping reflecting ponds within the home’s central courtyard instills a sense of meditation and retreat where one can contemplate the sky and ocean. Outdoor and indoor living is orchestrated by balancing views with privacy, communal space with intimacy. The clear expression of the steel skeleton structure, infilled with wood and glass, allows the structure to sit lightly along the coastal terrain, while limestone walls anchor the structure.

Description from architects:

Several generations of the owner’s family enjoyed seaside vacations in their weathered, wooden cottage in Crystal Cove, just north of Laguna Beach, California. When the lease with the State of California recently expired, the owners purchased a property within the Strand at the Headlands, a few miles south in Dana Point. Seeking to re-establish their familial base, the owners requested a relaxed family beach house accommodating three master suites for parents and grandparents, as well as a suitable environment for children, grandchildren and friends. The parti reflects the program through a composition of three diaphanous pavilions around a central, unifying courtyard. This courtyard is concealed from the street and entered discretely through a pivoting wood door revealing a covered passageway along a stone wall leading to the entry. This sequence of movement from street to inner sanctum creates an atmosphere of mystery and heightens the sense of arrival, while also revealing the ocean view sequentially. A series of overlapping reflecting ponds contained within the central courtyard instill a sense of meditation and retreat where one can contemplate the ocean and sky.

Beautiful Luxury Mansion in Laguna Beach, California

Fantastic home in Laguna Beach






Location




Bedrooms 5
Bathrooms 6.5 baths
Area 5850 sq. ft.
Year Built: 2002
Location Laguna Beach, California

This beautiful luxury mansion in California set right on the front row of a beach and greets us with an elegant luxury design and breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean. Spreading over 5,750 square feet, the mansion features five bedrooms, seven baths, expansive outdoor terraces, swimming pool and a spa overlooking the Laguna Beach coast.

Description from real estate agent.

Showcasing one of Emerald Bay's finest front-row locations, this exquisite estate blends Old World elegance with contemporary flair in a grand residence that maximizes panoramic ocean views from almost every room. The impeccable seaside sanctuary rivals 5-star resort living, promising its fortunate residents a rare lifestyle complimented by a setting just above a beautiful private beach.

Reflecting unparalleled craftsmanship and attention to detail, the residence encompasses nearly 5850 square feet of exquisitely appointed living space, with floor-to-ceiling windows, elegantly crafted stone flooring, voluminous ceiling heights, romantic archways and elegant wrought-iron staircases.

Appreciated refinements are led by an enormous home theatre for film connoisseurs, state-of-the-art audio and lighting systems, a gourmet kitchen with Viking and Wolf appliances, temperature-controlled wine room with storage for up to 700 bottles, 5 bedrooms, 6.5 baths, a game room or formal dining room with an artisan-crafted arched stone ceiling, exercise room and a private ocean-front black-bottom swimming pool and spa overlooking Emerald Bay's private beach.




Majestically situated on the bluff, the estate presents an elevator, 4-car garage, expansive homesite of approximately 14000 square feet, and a balcony, loggia or patio off most rooms for the ultimate in luxury living.

Frank Gehry's beautiful architecture - Schnabel House, Brentwood, Los Angeles, California






Project: Schnabel House
Architecture: Frank Gehry
Bedrooms: 5
Bathrooms: 5
Area: 5700 sq ft
Year: 1989
Location: Brentwood, Los Angeles, California
Photography: Nick Springett, LATimes




Built in 1989, Frank Gehry's Schnabel House in Brentwood (Los Angeles) has been called many things: free-form architecture, career watershed, family home, status symbol, sculpture. The house has five bedrooms and five bathrooms and has been described as "a village that looks inward". The half-acre of grounds include a swimming pool, a reflecting pond and an olive orchard. There is a main house, a guesthouse, an office and a garage-and-gym building with a breezeway.


Description from Architectural Digest, 2014

Schnabel House, one of the last single-family dwellings designed by Frank Gehry, is on the market, and it just got yet another price reduction. Called one of the greatest houses of the 20th century, the 5,700-square-foot home in L.A.’s Brentwood neighborhood was built in 1989 for Rockwell Schnabel, a former ambassador to Finland, and his wife, Marna, an architect.

The six-bedroom, five-bathroom residence was last sold by Broadway producer Jon B. Platt in January 2013, after he spent years restoring the home under Gehry’s guidance. Producer Michael LaFetra purchased the house from Platt, and since then it has been on and off the market with a series of price changes. LaFetra first listed the house in June 2014 for $14.995 million, then took it off the market a few weeks later. He relisted the property for $12.995 million last September and has reduced it three more times before arriving at the current $10.495 million asking price.

The property includes a main house, a guesthouse, a sauna, a garage and gym building, and an office with a dome inspired by the Griffith Observatory. The grounds feature a reflecting pond, a swimming pool, and an olive orchard.




“This is the design I had fantasized about for my own house,” Gehry has said of Schnabel House.