23231 Gonzales Drive

Marmol Radziner, Architects | The McCullough Residence, 1993. Sitting in the shade of the Chinese elm in the generous yard of what used to be a walnut grove, it's easy to imagine you're in an earlier era, particularly considering the architecture of this elegant home. In this early work, architects Marmol Radziner have taken cues from predecessors like Irving Gill, who bridged the gap between historical styles and Modernism, by stripping the design of superfluous ornament and allowing the forms to speak for themselves. Each room is contained in its own volume, and each volume is expressed uniquely in terms of its scale, proportions, and height relative to the other volumes, making for an exciting visual composition. The volumes have then been grouped around a central courtyard, allowing for both a pleasant connection to the outdoors and the benefits of passive cooling. French doors open the rooms to private patios and a lushly-landscaped yard, replete with a black-bottom swimming pool, sheltered by a weeping Russian olive and a variety of fruit-bearing trees. Inside, an open plan connects the spacious kitchen to dining and living areas, with bedrooms clustered around the courtyard. Vintage plumbing fixtures, original hardware, and classic lighting anchor the design in the past, while steel-troweled plaster, polished concrete floors, and quartz countertops lend a more contemporary feel to the finishes. Completing the compound, a vintage trailer, hand-built cob house, and geodesic exercise dome provide ample accommodations for friends and family.