The Sheats-Goldstein Residence in Los Angeles was built to be fantastical. The angular concrete, steel, and glass enclave, tucked into a canyon overflowing with tropical plants, certainly looks like the stuff of movies—and that’s because it is. Since John Lautner accepted the commission from the Sheats family in 1962, the famous midcentury home has continued to be the site for Hollywood productions, from The Big Lebowski to Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, reality show Selling Sunset, and even the music video for Doja Cat’s “Say So.” Its current owner, James Goldstein, is equally mythical: The 84-year-old man built his fortune by buying up rent-controlled mobile homes in California, attends over 100 NBA games per year (courtside seating only), adorns himself most often with some type of snakeskin, cowboy hat, or young woman (or all of the above), and sues cities that try to stop him from deregulating rent-controlled property.
He bought the Sheats home in 1972 and hired Lautner to expand and improve upon his own commission. They developed a concept for a tennis court, guesthouse, nightclub, and office. Lautner passed away before completing these additions, and now the resulting expansion is referred to as the Goldstein Entertainment Complex. Lautner’s apprentice, Duncan Nicholson, brought the vision to fruition.
Today, the property is set to be revamped again by Kristopher Conner and James Perry of Conner & Perry Architects. The duo worked on the home under Nicholson starting in 2015, and is now working on the new phase: A 90-foot lap pool, spa, kitchen, and dining facilities are completed. A theater and guesthouse are forthcoming.
It can be intimidating to expand on a design that’s already so iconic, but Conner and Perry approached this with Lautner’s interpretation of organic philosophy in mind. “One of the core tenets of that is never to copy something. Every design situation calls for a unique solution,” said Conner. “We look at our new designs as an evolution of his language. We’re dealing with the same geometry and materiality, but we’re adapting it to new functions or conditions.” In many ways that manifests in pushing materials to the limit, namely glass, as Lautner would, but taking it one step further as the systems and technologies now allow.
Goldstein’s office, sited underneath the tennis court, is one such example. The desk looks out toward the city, the view framed by canted tempered and laminated glass. Glazing is hung from the post-tension concrete structure of the tennis court, and delicately clipped connections are made with tiny, angular hardware developed by the architects. It’s one of the notable moments in which glass’s expressive quality becomes the point, as opposed to the many ways glass is made to disappear.
The glass wrapping the new “infinity” tennis court, lined with frameless glass guardrails, seems almost invisible in front of the lush landscape beyond. Perry shared that “it’s a really good example of the range of what glass can do, especially in the context of these concrete structures that create these huge spans and cantilevers.”
It’s also, noted Perry, a testament to the strength of the material: “By thickness, glass is stronger than plywood.” Glass can be used to hold up a stainless-steel handrail, and the home can be furnished with glass pieces, like the glass coffee table cantilevered over a concrete pillar.
For the new additions, the architects are continuing to push the material. “We’re talking about doing these pivot doors off the theater room 18 feet high,” said Conner. For the new guesthouse, located farther down the hill, the architects are working toward a flying V-shaped glass roof supported by a triangular steel grid— an homage to the original home.
In many ways the evolution of Lautner’s design catalogues the evolution of glass. In the iconic living room where Lautner embedded the folded concrete roof with drinkware to create a night sky effect, frameless glass offers enclosure while providing a completely transparent view of the city. Originally, however, “Lautner didn’t want to enclose the living room within the house. He wanted to use an air curtain system, and immediately, when the owners moved in, it didn’t work,” explained Perry. It was replaced with framed glass back then, but when Goldstein came along, this was replaced again with now-available frameless glass.
“So much of this house is about the modernist ideal of blurring the line between interior and exterior. The technology of the frameless glass has really brought the house as close to that perfection as it can be while still being an enclosed and conditioned environment when necessary,” said Conner. The complex captures the evolution of glass as the architects push it to do what was once impossible, a design fitting for the mythical characters who inhabit it.
Project Specifications
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- Design architect: Lautner Associates
(original), Nicholson Architects (past),
Conner & Perry Architects (current) - Architect of record: Conner & Perry Architects
- Landscape designer: Eric Nagelmann
- Structural engineering: Omnispan Corporation
- Electrical engineering: Erik Rettedal
- Civil engineering: CRC Enterprises
- Lighting design: SJ Lighting
- General contractor: Empire Group Fine
Construction (current),
Ostermann Construction (original) - Glass contractor: Giroux Glass
- Cladding: Breakform Design
- Glass: Giroux Glass
- Kinetic windows and doors: Alynnco
- Door hardware: Breakform Design
- Waterproofing: Systems Waterproofing Supply
- Interior finishes: Bend Goods, Knoll,
Gina Berschnider, EBK Woodworking,
Diona Marble
- Design architect: Lautner Associates