Photographs courtesy of Joe Fletcher from Ranch Houses: Living the California Dream, a Rizzoli book written by David Weingarten and Lucia Howard, and photographed by Joe Fletcher.
Founded by husband-and-wife team Alice Park and Michael McDonald, Los Angeles-based Park McDonald has a penchant for renovating, restoring, and reviving midcentury houses with great sensitivity and care (Frank Lloyd Wright fans, take note of the firm’s renovation of the Millard House).
The house, like many of Lautner’s designs, has star quality in the Hollywood sense as well: Post-renovation, it gained new fame as the setting for Tom Ford’s visually memorable film A Single Man.
The house is in the Montrose area of Glendale, California, on a heavily wooded site that is visible through the glassed-in ceiling of the dining room.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom house is a wood-framed construction with some brick walls.
The indoor/outdoor qualities of Southern Californian living are enhanced by large pivot doors.
In the living room, the sofa, chair, and stools are by George Nakashima and are upholstered in Pierre Frey fabric.
“We were not so concerned about replicating the original furnishings of the house,” Park says.
Daylight washes down the redwood paneling of the living room’s feature wall, now newly refinished down to the rock garden at its base.
A view from the living room across the open space to the dining room highlights the multi-layered and richly textured materials of the wood, brick, and glass construction.
The redwood paneling runs throughout the house, including in the bedrooms.
The extensive use of glass throughout is on full display in a bedroom with an original built-in desk.
The Schaffer family originally used the property for picnics under the large oak trees, and later decided they wanted to live there permanently.