In the Silver Lake Section of Los Angeles, a Renovation Takes Advantage of Enviable Views

After more than a year of slogging through the competitive Los Angeles housing market, Jeremy Mickel and Joe Waechter had finally given in to the idea of buying a fixer-upper. As first-time homeowners, renovating gave them pause, but their realtor connected them with Annie Ritz and Daniel Rabin, the couple behind architecture firm And And And Studio, who put them at ease.

Jeremy, a typeface designer, and Joe, a playwright and screenwriter, felt an instant affinity for the restrained playfulness of the studio’s work. "We loved their style," says Joe. "Minimalist but not cold, detailed and full of texture, and a sense of fun and color." In dating parlance, it was a match.

In late 2018, with Ritz and Rabin helping them evaluate homes, the couple closed on a 1938 house that descends from the top of a hillside in the Silver Lake neighborhood. Joe and Jeremy were already living in the area but on an opposite hill; when they saw the listing’s address they had a hunch it would at the very least have great views—and they were right.

"They were incredible," remembers Joe, "even if they were hidden behind small windows." With a vote of confidence from their designers, the couple were determined to make the renovation work. And it really required a lot of work.

The home was sturdy, but its interiors were dark and divided into a maze of impractically small spaces—"You could get lost going room to room," Joe recalls—with a grab bag of generic design details: wrought-iron railings, white square kitchen tiles, and a McMansion-style turret.

"In a certain way," Rabin says, "the nondescriptness of the house was its best attribute." Without a particular style to preserve, the designers had no qualms about gutting the interior.