Editor’s note: The following article first appeared in the Palisadian-Post in January 2009. It describes the famous enclave off Chautauqua and above PCH that includes a contemporary three-story main house and the historic Entenza House, Case Study No. 9. This property sold for $10 million in 2010 and is now back on the market, listed at $15.95 million. The primary residence and guest quarters include five bedrooms and nine bathrooms in 9,500 square feet. Other features on the 43,500-sq.-ft. lot include an art gallery, two offices, library, wine cellar, gym, swimming pool and ocean views. Just to the west of this property, overlooking Santa Monica Bay, is the Eames House, Case Study No. 8, shown in the adjoining photograph. ‘The intention of the Entenza house is to eliminate structure’to be as anonymous as possible.’ Edgardo Contini, who was the structural engineer for the house, Case Study House No. 9, was describing the house’s concealed columns and beams, but he could have been commenting on the house itself, which for 50 years has been hidden within the secluded enclave off Chautauqua with head-on views of the Pacific Ocean. Designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen in 1949, the Entenza house was restored 14 years ago and now serves as the guesthouse for the 9,700-sq.-ft. estate designed by Barry Berkus. The entire estate is on the market for $14 million. Strolling through the Entenza house this week, one could have been walking right into the Julius Shulman photos taken in 1950. ‘The house was a mess before Berkus brought it back to its original state,’ says Jan Horn, Coldwell Banker listing agent. From its structural clarity to the interior design, the house could truly serve as a ‘case study’ of mid-20th-century American architecture. The Entenza House, built for Arts & Architecture editor John Entenza, was never intended for the architectural attention it holds today’in 1991, it was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural monument. Indeed the design for the house had been submitted to Arts & Architecture for its postwar housing competition in 1943, which challenged some of the most important architects of the region (including Charles and Ray Eames, Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koening and Raphael Soriano) to help shape the course of the post-World War II building boom toward widespread acceptance of modern architecture and to offer technologically based and affordable housing. The Entenza plan won the magazine’s first prize. Case Study No. 8, the Eames House (now owned by the Eames Foundation), and Case Study No. 20, the Bailey House by Richard Neutra, completed the Case Study enclave on Chautauqua. Looked upon as the architectural opposite of its neighbor, the Eames house, which flaunts its steel structure, the Entenza house conceals its steel and glass structure under concrete and wood paneling. One of the first steel-framed Case Study houses, the house followed a simple design’a straightforward 42-ft. by 42-ft. cube in plan. It consists of two small bedrooms, three baths and kitchenette and extensive space for entertaining. Four slender columns in the center support the frame and shift the load to the outer rim. This frame and all but one of the four columns are completely concealed under plaster walls and a wood-paneled ceiling. All the drama is concentrated in the 36-foot-long open space, which serves as a flexible living and entertaining area and looks to the view through the floor-to-ceiling glassed south wall. John Entenza required minimal bedroom space, guest and bath facilities, and reserved a small windowless study for himself. The house today maintains the original architects’ concern for the organic unity of furniture and architecture. Eames and Saarinen had developed this idea while working together at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in the early 1940s, where they designed their award-winning molded wood furniture for The Museum of Modern Art’s Organic Design in Home Furnishing competition of 1940-41. In choosing the furnishings, the two men paid attention to the house’s overall visual and functional scheme. The freestanding steel and brick fireplace, between the built-in couch and the carpeted, raised living area, is painted orange-red to contrast with the neutral colorings of the beige carpet, linen sofa covering and wood and plaster interior surfaces. Several plywood chairs and the plastic-laminated plywood coffee table designed by Charles and Ray Eames, and the bench/bank by George Nelson, are in situ, as is the built-in cabinetry by Charles Eames in the living room. Visitors are welcome to the Eames House (Case Study House No. 8) for an exterior, self-guided tour. There is no parking at the house. Free street parking is available on Corona del Mar, just north of the house, a five-minute walk. For reservations (required), call (310) 459-9663 at least 48 hours in advance of your visit.
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