The conceptual and aesthetic design for this project was the result of the collaborative effort of the architect, Michael Heinrich, and myself. However, I started out the project on own. It seemed that one’s own house should be a personal expression as no one knows better how to meet these expectations that oneself. As I had designed other projects, it was natural to continue on with the development of my skills. I experienced major personal growth on numerous levels with this adventure. Any construction project immediately cuts directly to one’s entire personal philosopy. Architecture for me has always either been focused on Nature and Culture, as these issues seem to be at the core.
Building a house is building “shelter.” The term itself immediately implies a love/fear relationship with Nature. We immediately sense our connection to nature and the emotional sustanence it provides, yet we know well that we need protection from it’s darker side.
In addition, how we shelter ourselves reveals how we prefer to perceive our place in the Universe. While housing in flowing organic shapes as in Antonio Gaudí implies being submerged with Nature, Classical Modernism as in Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye asserts that Man somehow has control over the elements. This is where “Culture” come in.
My feeling is that we are evolving and getting closer to the acceptance of our fragile status. I think the general public is correct in favoring Frank Gehry over Richard Meier both for how he deals with “Nature” and “Culture.” Meier seems an antique. Maybe it’s appropriate that he house antiquities.
People typically deal with these issues by looking for a house with a generous sprinkling of windows and and a nice sunny lot. They hope the style isn’t too offensive. In retrospect, I appreciate the general wisdom.
When the opportunity to build a custom home appears, suddenly there are seemingly innumerable issues to deal with and limitations are everywhere. If you can manage to get your neighbor’s permission to build a flared wall, the chances are it won’t fit in the budget with everything else. You have to build with mostly straight walls and the general structure rarely can stray far from some kind of architectural tradition.
Most people deal with the issues by adopting some historical style whether it fits them or not. Why shouldn’t it be the other way around.? I attempted this. I started out borrowing ideas from others that seemed right for me and ended up adding my own wild and crazy thing. Michael of course did his part and encouraged such behavior. Basically, the final house modified the antique in such a way that it became alive. Classical modern is antique now and needs to be subverted if it is to have any connection to us now.
The history of the house is this: I designed a house, but it didn’t get built according to my plans. Architectural review committees and problems during construction threw up road blocks. The obstructions forced change and resulted in further development.
The original house was pure, austere and in touch with the soul. The dwelling was to be as if carved out of the mountain. The stucco was to match the soil, and concrete and rock were to be carried fully into the interior. A central curved form cast in concrete and small river pebbles was to reach from the sky and cut through the dwelling, forming a hearth on one side and an interior fountain on the other. A semi-circular living area joined space formed on a grid at a 75 degree angle.
The sophisticated manner in which ultra-natural materials were handled was to create a subtle tension- the excitment of crude river rock set in concrete but polished smooth. There were to be sensuous intersections of large and small rock. One could quiety revel in the naturalness of the cabinetry where pearwood, English harewood and satinwood were polished with natural oils and joined together in the upmost simplicity of an understated grid system.
It was no different than what was going on in the fashion industry at the time. This was the cusp of the eighties and ninties. Somber clothes were quietly embellished with ravishing subtle details. Indulgence in aesthetic luxury was a secret pleasure. The house that got built eliminated this nice feature. The revised house was exquisitely detailed, but on display. I was never truly comfortable with this aspect. However, if it had been a public space, I would have been totally happy.
While the detailing was different, the plan and elevations remained the same in both versions of the house. It all had to do with the function and psychology of the spaces and their orientation to the sun and wind and views.
The beauty was the way the space seemed to fill with the sky. I was more aware of cloud patterns there than in any space I have ever been in. Glass and solid created a profound presence. Strong shafts of light washed the full height of the fountain wall And, even at night moonlight lit its white granite cladding and cast elaborate shadows off the tower staircase.
My influences were the typical ones utilized by all students of architecture. I scavenged from the following sources: a text by Gaston Bachelard entitled, “The Poetics of Space,” Le Cobusier’s Ronchamp Chapel for its thick sculptural form and of course the deep set windows (I confess to enjoying even less sensuous concrete buildings that are considered Brutalist), the architecturally less ponderous Villa Savoye, the Sonoran Desert Museum for the river rock and the outdoor shelter of the kiosk (which never got it’s angular, stainless steel wire roof inspired by saguaro spines), portions of an art museum in Corpus Christi by Philip Johnson for the mezzanine type feel of the lower and upper studios (plus the exterior planter of the lower studio), Pierre Chareau’s House of Glass which likely had something to do with the high glass wall in the lower studio, Alvar Alto’s libraries for what eventually became the circular living room, Giovanni Piranesi’s staircases for the numerous staircases and especially for the stairs going up into the lower studio and continuing into the upper studio, silo’s sighted on a trip to Yosemite for the staircase tower, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art for walls with a negative base. Frank Lloyd Wright’s voice on a tape convinced me to design from the inside out without thought of the exterior (I realize this concept wasn’t original with him, but he spoke with personal authority that could not be ignored.) I have less respect for him now, because I learned from experience he was exaggerating a truth.
I also solicited help from people I knew. A generous architect gave me the idea for elevating the lower studio to protect it from late afternoon glare and he also initiated thoughts about a glass grid at the northwestern juncture of the space. Another convinced me that the flared segmented living room should become curved and helped me join the grided section of the house to the semicircular living room. My husband designed the curved sunscreen wall to block out glare from the west in the panoramic living/dining room area.
The house that was eventually built was not what my soul wanted to build, but what my mind did once unleashed. The final structure was the result of complex circumstances - the dance of life. The entire project including the prolonged lawsuit took a decade out of my life. Unfortunately, the house was built in a structurally unsound way; rain and plumbing leaks inundated the house in more ways that can even be imagined. It was a complete loss. I compiled a collection of shop drawings and a wrote a book of specifications listing and elaborating on all the complex materials and finishes so that the house could be restored, but there were no takers. Such is life.
As art it still lives in photos. It was intended to be a joy to the spirit. The spirit of course still exists. The Camarillo project served as a warm-up exercise that provided me with the experience necessary to progress to the next level. No longer was I translating anything. I was freely executing the mind’s music.
The house was composed like a Bach invention for the modern mind. We all know that young people do their math homework better if they are listening to punk music (or whatever) at the same time. A classical modern structure is quite nice, but not enough input for the way our brains are wired now. Since we couldn’t shape the walls freely like Frank Gehry, we found something else we could do to make it interesting. We developed independent lines of design thinking that could be played as counterpoint against each other. In addition, each independent idea had its counterpoint. Examples include:
1. protection versus immersion in nature
2. the cube clashes with the cylinder (intersecting at an angle - and additional pieces of angles from this clash are found throughout the house. See kitchen ceiling,hood and cabinetry throughout house.)
3. the control of classical modernism is contrasted with the expressive
4. the purity of classsical modernism is contrasted with its most hated enemy - the decorative (not historical decoration I might emphasize, but a personal system)
5. “decorative” is contrasted with “content”
6. “literal” is contrasted with “abstract”
7. “personal cultural content” is contrasted with “cultural content for society in general”
8. negative versus positive or yin and yang (examples: the front doors, the guest quarter’s bath, see-through windows and windows blocked with metal panels (this also occurred on the glass side panels next to several doors).
The detailing was treated as decorative, but yet it was treated as being full of content. A viewer was supposed to question whether the cultural content was personal or part of a general milieu. Also, the viewer might wonder if items should be identified or considered abstract.
In order for these basic themes to resound with richness, they had to be developed with endless variation. These were developed by the imaginative use of materials and attention to endless subtle details. The materials themselves while they were serving the general themes were also doing their own counterpoint:
1. Granite was flamed to be rough, polished to a mirror like finish or honed to have a dull rubbed finish. The variety of stone was limited in order to increase awareness of the contrasting possibilities within each material.
2. Rift maple doors and cabinetry were either natural or colored with analine dye.
3. The glazing was subtly patterned with a careful selection of tints and textures of laminated glass panels. In addition, there are isolated accents of sandblasted and cracked treatments plus metal inserts in a few windows and glass doors. In the dressing areas of several bedrooms, mirror was patterned with contrasting colors of mirror.
4. Steel was cold rolled or stainless. The steel was variously swirled, brushed, blackened or broken into different textures and patterns of grids.
All of these elements were composed to form patterns that were seamlessly woven into the cabinetry, windows, mirrors, wood doors, glass doors, flooring, ceiling and even the drywall. It all worked together to delight that part of our being that enjoys this rich musical mix.
Designing it was work. Getting it built was even more of a challenge. I know because I personally supervised all the finish work.
The final design of the built structure was a joint project of the architect Michael Heinrich and myself. It was a rather unusual relationship in that I came to him and his partner with a fully designed house and only a request to add some refinement in the detailing and to provide a set of construction drawings. My husband and I retained ownership of the house drawings. Michael’s partner provided the basic construction drawings and specifications that were submitted to the county for approval, but these construction documents had little to do with the design that was finally built; the partner exited the project at the early stages of pouring the foundation.
Due to problems with neighbors, Michael had to add the roof, an unfortunate addition for both aesthetic and functional reasons. He also had to add exterior low walls to please the architectural review comittee, but these improved the design.
Michael added other innumerable wonderful details (you might check out the entrance walls and gate, all the stair rails, the stainless steel “tear duct” fountain, ceiling treatments and the way plain low walls are separated in the interior entry area.
The unintelligible dimensioning system on the plans most likely contributed to the contractor pouring the foundation and doing the early framing with incorrect dimensions. The allowances necessary for the design to be implemented with the specified building materials were not made. As the builder gradually divulged his inability to build with the specified materials, it became apparent that an entirely new look for the house would have to be designed.
Changing the surface materials was major. Michael and I had to come up with a way to integrate new materials into the structure in a convincing manner. This we worked on jointly. He did some parts and I did others, but always we consulted each other and sometimes we could not sort out who did what.
The central staircase I turned over to Michael so that he could at least freely express himself in one part of the project. Because what he designed was so expressive, it became imperative that the rest of the house respond appropriately. Michael encouraged me to respond to the challenge in a flexible and positive manner.
Michael suggested that we integrate a veneer of “cultural archeology” into the structure. At first I didn’t know what he meant by this abuse of the English language. (Not an uncommon tendency among architects.) Finally, after several discussions I was able to get to the heart of the matter. What he really meant was leaving a trail of cultural artifacts so that later archeologists would have something to discover.
By chance, this happened to be precisely what I was doing in the Camarillo project. I had been designing the Camarillo project during the period the construction documents were being drawn up and had shared what I was doing during design meetings. My method utilized translating poetry to music and then to abstract visual rhythms. I wanted to find out if some of the earlier content of feeling in the poetry might somehow be embedded. ( I concluded that a subtle trace can be left behind.) The trace truly is subtle, and only for the discriminating and curious. I left behind a “Hammurabi’s Code” and also artwork incorporating the poem so that an archeologist coming upon the site years later could work his or her way back from the rhythms of visual patterns to actual lines of the poem. The idea was that there were discoveries to be made and that the abstract might really signify more.
At the same time Michael was also experimenting with ideas for his own version of leaving cultural traces for the curious. The sources for his artifacts weren’t poems or music, but instead were familiar objects and ideas that surrounded him in his studio. He used such things as the teacup he had served me coffee in, constructs such as the formulas E = m c squared, F = m x a, and a football because he was a Raider’s fan and he had worked on a proposal for them, letters and elements of musical notation. His intent was to make these literal objects become elements of an abstract composition. However, because they kept their literal form even though they were used in an abstract manner, the final result lended a strong sense of ambiguity. A person had to wonder whether he intended them to be literal or abstract. The only image he admitted had meaning for him was the knife or sword slicing the eye. He said it represented the modification of perception. Maybe he also liked double meanings. It’s hard to ignore that the house was built for a surgeon who made his living slicing eyes.
Well, actually eyelids. Interestingly, the single part of the project that piqued my husband’s interest was the problem of the eye of the house (the curved living/dining room not having eyelids (protection from the sun). This he took upon himself to create when he came up with the curved sunscreen.
The central staircase is a tour de force that utilized all of everything. The fabricator, Gale McCall had to tone it down a bit just to get it built. I was wowed by it and had to eliminate plans for my own sculpture in the oculus in the top of the tower. Michael’s staircase is the central element that brings to life the concept of stimulating the viewer to become a cultural archeologist.
The teacup in the bathroom was a hot button. While I liked having my coffee cup memorialized, the builders and my husband independently declared it a symbol of decadence. Workers were so busy looking for meaning in everything that they unanimously concluded that the ceiling lighting plan in the living room was a particular constellation. I was shocked - of course it was purely functional.
The flag bathroom was not intentional, but it happened and I let it be. However, I deliberately intended the black and white of the guest quarter’s bath to make one think of negative and positive or yin and yang; likewise, the same for the front door. The “i” of the master bath deck was to be read as either an abstract rhythm or a symbol of something literal and as the literal letter has a homonym, it could either refer to the “i” of the ego or mean “eye,” leading back to the concept of modified perception.
Was all of this decorative and a sin in architecture? Did it have real meaning? As far as we were concerned, the purpose of architecture was to make people participants. We hoped to stimulate viewers to look, feel and think. Nothing should be taboo.
At this time (1989-1991) Michael was designing spaces that looked very much like the Prada boutique in SoHo by Rem Koolhaas (2002) which features an unabashed use of floral wallpaper. I suppose the images for our project are less decorative than floral wallpaper because they were intended to possibly have deeper meaning. The unknowingness of it was to be intellectually stimulating. But if you think about it, floral wallpaper of course conveys content too.
The new version of the house was a challenge and a race against time. Designing during construction was not comfortable. It could get built the next day with no chance of revisions.
The pychological fit was not assured either. The feel of the house that was abandoned was somber and poetic. The new one was expressive and opulent.. What if the showiness detracted from the essentials of the space? The crazy streak demonstrated in Camarillo (no pun intended on the former mental hospital) was being mined for material to be displayed in a large space on top of a hill.
Quite a few people had considered the stone and concrete house of my dreams to be a cross between a medieval fortress and a modern prison. It was an exchange of going from being hated for being too austere to being hated for being too expressive. People wondered why we just didn’t do some sentimental blend of something or another.
The house about Nature and contemplation of Culture was an unstoppable force. I just decided to go with it and not look back. This was not an easy thing to do in the early ninties when we were in the middle of a deep recession. I wanted the trees to quickly grow to regain privacy. As it turned out, I’m glad I had a good time. Either house was fated to be destroyed by Nature.
The final result seemed like an extraordinary event. As the intent was to challenge perception with visual music, I believe we succeeded in that. The wildness was a needed antidote for the classical underpinnings of the structure. The tension between the two poles of feeling provided energy at the same time it provided balance. It took classical modernism beyond it’s dated past and made it something of interest and excitment for the present.
Now, maybe that present needs to be postponed slightly. Things will get better and people will want to enjoy life again. Then it will fit.
Eve Mero
January, 2002