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"View Slideshow\n\nArchitects have their own language. They speak about space in terms that may seem arcane or even cabalistic to nonpractitioners, delineating elusive concepts such as scale, proportion, and balance with words like datum and enframement. Walls are not merely walls, they are membranes or skins. Sliding doors are permeable boundaries. And in the case of a striking modern house that architect Michael B. Lehrer designed in a West Los Angeles enclave, floors become an opportunity for a meditation on \"flatness,\" as he puts it, and mirrors are a means of \"dematerializing what is solid and what is space.\"\n\nLehrer's fluency in the lingua franca of the architecture academy, however, does not obscure the pragmatic goals of his endeavor. \"Spatial rigor is important because it translates into palpable human experience. That sense of deep order makes the joy more profound. It's not about theory,\" he insists.\n\nIn one regard, this epic project, 13 years in the making, is quite straightforward. Lehrer's clients\u2014he's a retired businessman and a sculptor obsessed with the sensuality of stone, she's a former landscape designer and avid gardener\u2014wanted a light-filled dwelling that would feel as though it were part of the setting, a sheltered piece of land replete with old-growth trees. The couple had been living in a 1950s tract house on the property since 1976; they'd undertaken two renovations over roughly two decades before they discovered Lehrer's work during a fortuitous local architecture tour in 1999. The pair liked what they saw, and in short order they contacted him about the possibility of expanding their dining room. That request led to talk of building a larger kitchen, and from there the commission snowballed into what Lehrer characterizes as a \"13-year conversation,\" the last five years of which were spent in construction following the demolition of the original house.\n\n\"I love the Getty and the procession of space after space there. The whole place just speaks to me,\" says the wife, referring to Richard Meier's modernist citadel of culture in nearby Brentwood. \"Michael is a magician with that kind of pure architecture, particularly in his ability to bring nature in.\"\n\nLehrer took the idea of indoor/outdoor living so essential to the L.A. lifestyle and interpreted it in a three-story, 13,000-square-foot structure whose massive sliding and pivoting glass walls, doors, and windows convert indoor spaces into true open-air pavilions. The living room is perhaps the truest expression of the architect's approach. Six movable glass wall panels, stretching 42 feet, can be ganged in one stack, effectively making the room a part of the adjacent garden terrace. A ground plane of Alhambra limestone runs between indoors and out, its threshold nearly invisible. The clients' decision to frame the house entirely in steel made these features possible and also allowed Lehrer to float a number of stationary interior walls above bands of glass that extend 30 inches up from the floor.\u00A0\n\nServing as an organizing device for the residence is a 200-foot-long, skylight-crowned \"spine\" that travels north to south from the entry hall all the way through to the master bath. The living, dining, and breakfast areas are arrayed along this central channel, as are a double-height maple-paneled kitchen and family room that collect natural illumination from skylights as well as glass walls facing onto a terrace.\n\n\"The house is here to frame the landscape and admit light,\" Lehrer explains. \"You can see the beautiful gardens and trees wherever you are. The structure itself is present, of course, but almost incidental.\" On all sides, paths meander through grassy surroundings, including an elaborate vegetable garden and felicitous spots from which to enjoy the husband's abstract outdoor sculptures.\n\nThe purposely restrained, almost minimalist furnishings scheme by JoAnne Brosnahan of Unique Custom Interiors acknowledges the primacy of the landscape in the hierarchy. \"The clients like things that are soothing and comfortable, but they didn't want a million pillows and accessories,\" she says. \"They'd rather have fewer, substantial pieces that accent the architecture and enhance the experience of living in nature.\" Slabs of onyx and marble selected by the homeowners from the quarries of Pietrasanta, Italy, create a handful of bravura moments within the discreet interiors. The richly veined panels are deployed mostly as bar and bathroom counters as well as shower walls, although one sheet of amber onyx is hung like a painting in the entry hall. \"I absolutely love stone, and I have great respect for craftsmen who really know how to work the material,\" the husband says. \"The stone applications here are virtuoso performances.\"\n\nUltimately, both Lehrer's and contractor Dan Andrews's obsessive focus on alignments, axes, and materials is imperceptible to guests\u2014which is as it should be, according to the architect. \"This house is so extraordinary because there are no compromises in construction, no throwaway spaces, and no arbitrary decisions,\" he observes. \"Delight is a matter of extreme gravitas\u2014you should feel it without sensing the effort that brought it about.\"\n\nClick here to see the slide show of this light-filled Los Angeles villa."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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