“Esther McCoy’s 1962 book, Modern California Houses, lies on a coffee table in one of the three units of Richard Neutra’s Kelton Apartments in Westwood, completed in 1941. The flat is the new home of Modern California House. ”
The legendary historian is renowned for her groundbreaking recounting of California architecture and especially Modernism, propelling it to the world stage. She knew all the players, worked for Schindler as a draftsman during World War II and often collaborated with her dear friend the photographer Julius Shulman. McCoy researched relentlessly and interviewed with steely determination, rendered in opinions, tart, taut, and concise. No surprise, then, that the values of both the surroundings and the book inspired the chosen name for Modern California House. Both illuminate the stories embedded in Modern houses and illuminate the qualities of good architecture.
The Kelton is signature Neutra in its synthesis of a spartan material palette somehow transformed into poetry, tranquility, light, air, and views. Luxe was not in fancy finishes, rather, in how humble, sturdy, everyday materials could become a medium for life well lived. Luxe is in the way he played tricks of perception and conceived space, leading you onto balconies surrounded by greenery but always giving you alternatives for your path of travel, your choices, your life.
“The Kelton is signature Neutra in its synthesis of a spartan materials palette somehow transformed into poetry, tranquility, light, air, and views.”
The Kelton Apartments may be untouched because it is still owned by the Neutra family. Neutra stories are part of this place. Neutra was nearing 50 when he designed this for his in-laws, Alfred and Lilly Niedermann, for family and friends. The building, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was a kind of “VDL West,” the family home named after the Dutch industrialist who loaned Neutra money to help build the VDL Research House 1 in Silverlake.
While the Kelton looks like a single-family house from the street, it comprises three units, plus a room at the very back of the triplex that Neutra cleverly kitted out; this “Gardener’s Room” was long occupied rent free by the family’s housekeeper, Evelyn Frances, as she aged. Each of the three apartments have different orientations, sizes, entrances, and terraces, as though with a twist of the wrist Neutra swiveled each of the three stories to face a different way. The terraces are broad and deeper than those at the Strathmore Apartments, perhaps Neutra intended the very sunset cocktail parties given by a distinguished architectural historian and professor emeritus, who has lived in one of the units, since 1989. The units are stacked, offset both horizontally and vertically, providing each unit with a unique relationship to the ground plane and to the dense thicket of conifers, Chinese elm, and tall shrubs surrounding the complex.
“The building, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, was a kind of “VDL West,” the family home named after the Dutch industrialist who loaned Neutra money to help build the VDL Research House 1 in Silverlake. ”
Architecturally, the Kelton’s more relaxed posture; the use of redwood siding at 644 (the entrance of Modern California House); the Philippine mahogany plywood on some interior walls; and the surprising—but original—use of brown rather than aluminum paint for window and framing members, all signal a break from a canonical International Style, a break also apparent in the Ward-Berger House, 1939, on Lake Hollywood Drive.
A 1944 issue of Pencil Points praised Neutra’s ability to secure a steady source of income by designing flats that felt like private homes, calling out such features as the wide (36”) closet doors, providing for ease of use (a feature that is rare even today); vented base cabinetry and trash receptacles to keep produce and air fresh; linoleum or hardwood floors; and even “numerous convenience outlets”, another deluxe feature more likely specified for a private custom house, not a typical apartment. The Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, Oct. 6, 1946, introduced its article “Apartments That Take To The Hills” with a reminder of wartime restrictions. It noted that for all their compactness, Neutra’s apartments expressed “true homelike character” and a “fine relationship to the outdoors” as well as providing the “elasticity of usage of every nook and corner so needed today, and the double and triple functioning of every square foot of floor area,” a compliment that Neutra, who insisted that his hard-working details perform more than one function, must have appreciated.
While only 123 square feet, the woodsy “Gardener’s Room” is so special that it deserves extra attention. It is a pièce de ré·sis·tance of space-saving design: the toilet is hidden beneath a flip-up plywood shelf, part of a clever assemblage of storage elements that included a narrow bed, shelving, a closet, a tiny sink, and a hot plate. Stained a dark rich reddish brown, the redwood grouping recalls strategies and materials that Neutra admired in vernacular Japanese dwellings, as he was perennially interested in the ergonomics of built-ins. His “A Study of Storage Elements,” Architectural Forum, October 1937, analyzed how well-designed cabinetry could save steps and labor. The generous amount of glazing on the east and south, looking into banks of greenery, illuminate the interior and prevent it from being dark and claustrophic.
The entire triplex served generations of Neutras at various times, something like a happy game of musical chairs, literally embodying Neutra’s requirement of residential architecture, that dwellings athletically accommodate ever-changing family dynamics. One event proved a special surprise, most of all to Neutra himself. The ground floor studio apartment, 648, was first occupied by Lilly and Alfred, whose Swiss background, perhaps, led them to choose the smallest unit as the most efficient. One Christmas evening in the 1940s, the family arrived to celebrate. To their surprise, there was no traditional Christmas tree in the studio. After a glass of wine, anticipation building, in darkness they were finally led into a new space, a bedroom, newly “liberated” from the adjacent unit. Now filled with the flickering candle light of the elusive tree, the change was made without their architect son’s knowledge, but with his blessing. Later, Regula Niedermann Thorsten, Dione’s sister and an administrator at the Neutra practice, took over the studio. While teaching at UCLA, Raymond, Richard’s youngest son, lived in the top unit with his (late) wife Penny. Family birthdays were celebrated here, and Hollywood studio musicians and others, including Arnold Schoenberg, joined Alfred, a serious amateur violinist, for chamber music. It was, to coin Neutra’s phrase, the family’s second “soul anchorage.”
-Family photo courtesy of Raymond Neutra
“It was, to coin Neutra’s phrase, the family’s second “soul anchorage.” ”
While no Neutras live there today, the parties on the terraces amidst the trees, the music and the gatherings, the culture, will continue in the Kelton’s new iterations and residents. The walls will frame more memories, voices and the strains of music lingering in the spaces and on the terraces.
-Barbara Lamprecht is the author of Neutra: Complete Works (Taschen, 2000), Neutra (Taschen 2004), and Richard Neutra Furniture: The Body and the Senses (Wasmuth, 2015). As a qualified architectural historian, Dr. Lamprecht, M.Arch. Ph.D., specializes in the rehabilitation of Modern buildings and preparing evaluations, designations of historic resources, and Mills Act contracts.
Julius Shulman images © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Color photography by Damon Jones @survivalthroughdesign
Matt Wignall photo
