Architect Designs ‘A+M House’ in Santa Monica Canyon

By LILY TINOCO | Reporter

The Palisadian-Post recently caught up with architect Eric Owen Moss to learn more about his self-designed “A+M” House in Santa Monica Canyon.

Moss first explained the sentiment behind the home, and the significance behind A+M.

“A.M. is, of course, morning,” Moss explained, “So if you like metaphors, morning is when the sun comes up and everybody’s smiling, so it is an indication of optimism … But the other thing is [A] stands for Addy, who’s my daughter, and M stands for Miller, who’s the boy. The house was ultimately seen as a house that they would own … The house is, in theory, really set up in the long term for them.

“This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this. Most of the work we do is usually a little bit bigger for a different kind of constituency. This is a personal thing, it’s kind of an experiment. We’ll see if Pacific Palisades can tolerate an experiment.”

Moss said the house is organized around a four-story, clerestory space with skylights on top and windows that capture ocean, canyon and canal views. The house begins smaller on the ground then changes shape, increasing in size as it gets taller.

The three-story residence—four, if you count the top-deck—plays off its surroundings, and its unconventional design is a nod to the pocket of Santa Monica Canyon it has found itself in.

“It’s a sort of funky area, it’s not what you think of when you think of Santa Monica Canyon,” Moss said. “There’s a mix of sites that haven’t been developed for years. There’s Patrick’s Roadhouse down at the end, and there’s some small apartments and the canal, and it’s just an odd mix … I think it’s fun.”

When designing the layout of the house, Moss said he considered the conventional: A kitchen, dining room, den and X-number of bedrooms. But he wasn’t sure how that might be used over the years.

Instead, the features of the house flow like a story, one that considers community and time well-spent with others.

“On the second floor, with a sloping floor built into it, there’s a theater, which we thought we would wind up using to watch everything from Tom Cruise to ‘Gone With the Wind’ … What I wound up with is ’SC kids sitting there at two in the morning playing video games,” Moss said with a laugh. “There’s also a symposium room, which has a circular piece of furniture, because in my life, there are people that come in from various places in the world, and we sit around and talk.”

Past the second floor, there are two large bedrooms on the top floor that can be used as separate master suites. Each room features a large living space, a walk-in closet and a bathroom.

Moss further explained that its eye-capturing, green exterior was not necessarily a stylistic choice, as it was essential to preserving the design of the house. An industrial coating called polyurea was applied to the exterior walls, roofs and soffits to preserve its milled shape.

“The material is not typically used for houses, although it could be,” Moss said to the Post. “But it’s typically used in more industrial applications, stadium roofs or cyclotrons, or even things like big pieces of industry. It goes on as gray and it turns green.

“One of the reasons that we used it is because of the issue of the house changing form as it goes from the ground to the sky … And if you finish a building with a thicker material, you can repair the building, in a sense, with a plaster. But this material you can’t fix … The finish we picked, you can’t adjust it, it’s too thin. And so what it reveals is exactly the success—or failure—of this shape change. And we wanted to do that, so that’s what we did, and it’s green.”

Moss said although there is no general consensus on the color, he finds the green charming.

For more information on the house or Moss’ works, visit ericowenmoss.com.