bubbleinfo.com

Here is the link to Dale Naegle’s website, with the story and photos during construction: http://www.dalenaeglearchitect.com/Site/Pavilion_Story.html

In 1960 Sam Bell heir to General Mills (Bell Potato Chips) purchased a summer home with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean.  His property extended down a 300 foot cliff to the mean high tide line of the surf below.  His beach is isolated 4 miles from public access to the North, and is accessible only at low tide through rugged, slippery rocks from the south, and remains unused and out of sight. Only surfers 100 yards away can see the mushroom shape of the guest retreat.

You can also see it from above in murph’s paragliding video:

Paragliding at Torrey Pines from mike murphy on Vimeo.

Julius Shulman, who passed away last year at age 98, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry.  His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California’s modernist movement, and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. A documentary about him, called Visual Acoustics, has been running on the Sundance Channel – more at this link:  http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/

Hat tip to kwaping for sending along the Glass Pavilion, in Montecito, CA:

5br/6ba, 13,875 sf

3.49-acre lot

32 cars

6 years to build

$35 million

“An almost entirely glass home, it allows the occupants to be comfortably inside while completely enveloped within nature.  Through the use of massive structural steel beams, the home is able to appear weightless, as it hovers above an expansive lawn.” http://montecitopavilion.com/

Tom Tarrant is an ex-San Diegan who is flipping houses in San Antonio.  Here is a youtube of a 1923 Craftsman-style house that he painted with seven colors!  Click here for more details.

It’s late on Sunday night, and the only thing that’ll keep you awake another minute, is…well, um…winners of the retro contest?

The white floor mat in front of the toilet is a nice touch too.

From the latimes.com

The former hunting retreat that Southern California Edison’s first president, John Barnes Miller, built around 1918 is for sale in unincorporated Claremont, listed for $3.5 million.

Three miles up Webb Canyon Road, Trails End Ranch offers a rare glimpse of early California from its nearly 51 wilderness acres, which include live oak, scrub oak, redwood, olive, peach and pepper trees, to name a few.

Although the single-level U-shaped, hacienda-style home was built before Los Angeles County started tracking building permits, a 1918 announcement by Southern California Edison said the company would construct a number of rustic redwood residences. “It is highly likely that Miller’s retreat was one of these houses,” said Tim Gregory of Pasadena-based Building Biographer.

Trails End caught the eye of plein-air artist John Gamble, whose oil-on-canvas depiction in 1929 is on exhibit at Laguna Beach’s Redfern Gallery.

For more than a decade, current owners Laura and Tom Miller (no relation to the ranch’s original owner) have made extensive improvements to the main house, the two guesthouses and the property’s infrastructure.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the latimes.com:

What’s thought to be the only remaining house in Los Angeles designed by the Craftsman stars the Greene brothers is for sale. It’s beautiful, yes. It has four original leaded glass light fixtures. It’s been lovingly restored over more than 20 years.

And it’s listed at $775,000. By comparison, the much larger Greene & Greene-designed Spinks House in Pasadena — site of the architects’ gems the Gamble and Blacker houses — was on the market last year for $4.6 million.

So why is this one, the Lucy Wheeler House, on the market even long enough for a story to be written and published?

For one thing, although the historic status of the house might net the buyer tax savings under the Mills Act, it also means the owner can’t choose the living room paint colors or replace the original kitchen sink. For another, the house is in West Adams, a neighborhood near downtown that is loved fiercely by its defenders but that demands its newcomers to be, if not pioneers, at least residents ready for some scruffiness.

For the full story and more photos, click here:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/06/a-greene-greene-for-under-1-million-and-why-its-not-selling.html

The original list price in October 2008 was $15,900,000, but they had lowered it all the way down to $11,900,000 towards the end of 2009, and marked it contingent.  I guess the bank didn’t like the package?  Wells Fargo foreclosed last week, opening bid was $9,977,334: