An 11-Year Renovation Helps a Couple Grow Simpatico With the Original Homeowner’s Quirky Vision
An inspired, if poorly constructed, Los Angeles home gets a proper retrofit that preserves its many idiosyncrasies.
An inspired, if poorly constructed, Los Angeles home gets a proper retrofit that preserves its many idiosyncrasies.
In 2009 on a quiet Los Angeles corner, then–The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf CEO Mel Elias found a severely water-damaged, crumbling 5,000-square-foot house hidden behind a tangle of overgrown vegetation. Its former owner, the late Hollywood acting coach Milton Katselas, had filled his property with industrial skylights and enormous, wood-burning fireplaces, with one in a central dining area oddly embellished with a singular red tile. The glass-and-concrete construction was framed by high ceilings, rusted steel beams, and varied elevations across the single-story plan. The floor-to-ceiling rectangular bookcases lining the sunlit dining room hid an unusual surprise: a secret doorway that led to the primary bedroom walk-in closet.
Sarah Butler and Mel Elias’s Siberian husky, Rooney, reclines in the renovated dining room of their Los Angeles home. The raised floor provides easy access to mechanical systems, something the house lacked as originally built.
Photo by Manolo Langis
The home’s previous owner, legendary acting coach Milton Katselas, turned a pair of 1940s cottages into a quirky concrete-and-steel pavilion with a guesthouse just behind it. An Electra bicycle from Trek is parked in front.
Photo by Manolo Langis
"It was the most unique property I’ve ever seen," Mel says, having looked past its leaking ceilings and previous year of obvious neglect. Following his own year of scouring the market for a new home, he knew he had to buy this one (along with some of Katselas’s paintings and his epic collection of art books). The rest of the housing market in comparison, he says, "was just terribly boring."
In the dining room, under one of six large industrial skylights, one of the massive hearths is ornamented with a single red tile. Though they don’t know why Katselas placed it there, Mel and designer/project manager Carter Bradley turned it into a motif that pops up unexpectedly elsewhere in the house.
Photo by Manolo Langis
See the full story on Dwell.com: An 11-Year Renovation Helps a Couple Grow Simpatico With the Original Homeowner’s Quirky Vision
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