living room opens to a pool surrounded by a cantilevered,
pebble-concrete deck that juts out into the horizon towards the
Santa Monica Bay. It has to be one of the greatest man-caves
ever conceived.
James Goldstein bought the Sheats House in 1972, 10
years into its existence, for $182,000. “I know, it sounds kind of
shocking,” he admits.
Prior to buying the house, Goldstein spoke with Lautner on
the phone.
“He expressed his pride in the house and strongly
recommended that I buy it, but he hadn’t been over to see what
had been done to it until roughly 1979 when I brought him
over—his mouth fell open.”
Lautner had originally conceived of the living room being
open to the pool area with an air curtain protecting the “inside.”
In other words, no obstructions, not even glass, to the outdoor
environment. That never came to pass. Instead, previous
owners had put in glass windows intersected by horizontal
and vertical steel mullions. It was the exact opposite of intent.
Goldstein’s first project with Lautner was to remove the
mullions and replace them with frameless glass. Lautner was all
for it.
“That was the first construction project I’d ever been
involved with in my life and the first thing I had done to this
house,” Goldstein remembers. “Once I got my feet wet with that
project, I was off and running with more things that I wanted to
have done.”
Goldstein and Lautner spent 15 years together trying to
“perfect” the house. “We hit it off and I could see that we liked
the same things and we both had a rebellious streak and didn’t
like conformity or the corporate mentality,” says Goldstein.
I ask if it was the beginning of a happy ménage-a-trois, between
he, Lautner and the house.
“It wasn’t just the love of the house, it was the way our
minds worked,” Goldstein replies, ignoring the quip. “He was
always very receptive to my ideas and what I wanted to do
to improve the house. At the same time, he never imposed
anything, or told me ‘This is what I’d like to have done,’
sometimes to the point of frustration because I would have
liked to have heard his ideas.”
Goldstein pauses. He looks around for a bit and continues.
“He always waited for my ideas and took them and
enhanced them. He would typically come up with several
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alte rnative sketches for any of my ideas and allow me to pick
the ones I liked the most and then we would do a small model
of it and then we would do some actual mock ups and then
we would start the construction of it. At each phase of that
development, we’d be making modifications as we went along,
including the final construction phase.”
He pauses again as if he is replaying the action in his head.
“There would always be modifications to try to make
everything as perfect as possible without any regards to what
it would cost. There was never a budget; there was never an
estimate. It was always, how can we make this as perfect as
possible without any regard to the cost.”
Talk about a dream client. Architecture is a tough racket
and even Frank Lloyd Wright was constantly struggling with
money. Goldstein, with his sweeping program of first setting
right, and then advancing the designs, must have felt like a
godsend to Lautner in his sunset years.
I ask Goldstein, who estimates he’s put $10 million into the
project so far, if he had a big picture in mind or if the property
evolved incrementally.
Long pause.
“I have to say, I didn’t see a big picture,” he says. “Maybe
at some point later on I did, but I started out working
incrementally and eventually I replaced the glass in the house
with frameless glass, for example. Then, I just worked on every
room of the house to try to achieve perfection. When I pretty
much completed the revisions to the house, I still continued to
work on little details.”
MY DEAR HOUSE
Goldstein takes me on a tour. One that he’s must have done
hundreds of times—from Lauternites to movie stars to
international architecture buffs to drunk party guests looking
for an adventure. He moves slowly, making sure no anecdote
is left out, and no matter what magical or beautiful thing he
points out he never breaks from his non-plussed demeanor. The
attention to detail is astounding. There is so much to take in, it’s
almost overwhelming. He points out the skylights on the roof
overhanging the pool deck, which were filled in with drinking
glasses by previous owners to save money.
“That turned out to be a great idea,” he says.
The original pool had a waterline beneath the coping,
surrounded by Mexican tile. Goldstein replaced the tile with
concrete, per the original design, and raised the water level to
affect an infinity pool. He added a planter on the west side.
The pebble concrete in the living area which was covered with
green, shag carpet, Goldstein tore up and replaced the concrete
bit by bit. The fireplace was made of rocks and Goldstein
replaced it with concrete to match the buildings poured-inconcrete structures.
Goldstein put in a two-level koi pond with a waterfall
and concrete steppingstones. The Lautner designed banquets
are about the only thing that stayed as is inside. Retractable
skylights were added. Goldstein fingers some controls and in a
Photo: Elizabeth Daniels
Goldstein and Lautner spent 15 years
together trying to “perfect” the house.
“We hit it off and I could see that we
liked the same things, we both had
a rebellious streak, and didn’t like
conformity or the corporate mentality,”
says Goldstein.