There is no state-of-the-art media room, no marble spa bathrooms nor some of the other luxuries one might expect at the home of High School Musical creator Bill Borden and architect Melinda Gray.
Their Santa Monica house is a simple ranch, a 100-foot-long rectangle fronted by a loggia, its seven archways formed of fat bricks salvaged from an old kiln.
Ugly duckling
The once-ramshackle hacienda was constructed by a Swedish boat builder in 1932 for Leo Carrillo, the cowboy movie star.
Lesser folk might have restored the fanciful structure as a period piece or just torn it down, but those options were anathema to self-proclaimed “complete modernists” Borden and Gray, who instead applied their contemporary design sensibility while preserving the integrity of the vernacular architecture.
As the producer who launched the MTV musical The American Mall recently and as the creative force behind Gray Matter Architecture, Borden and Gray didn’t lack resources or imagination.
Nonetheless, it was a challenge reconciling what the house had been and what they wanted it to become.
With thick adobe walls, low tile roof and long eaves that make air-conditioning unnecessary, the house was green for its time.
But it also had been cast into shadow by mature oaks and nearby mountains. “I couldn’t even read a book in the daytime,” Gray says. “It really needed natural light.”
She installed a skylight that floods the living room with sunshine, illuminating wooden trusses and beams.
The kitchen, closed off and claustrophobic, became more airy once a wall was removed and another skylight was added.
New open shelving, poured-concrete islands and an unrestricted flow into the adjacent work space and lounge created a great room with a Spanish accent.
For the loggia, Gray hired retail storefront glaziers to fit glass into the brick arches. For the larger openings, she designed steel walkout doors and a 10-by-6.5-foot window on a sliding track.
Metamorphosis
“Weather-stripping it was the trickiest part,” Gray says. “But we live in California. So what if a little fresh air sneaks in?”
The newly enclosed loggia not only brought in light and ventilation but also provided a much-needed hall for the house, which is laid out like a railroad flat.
At one end of the loggia lies a meditation nook. In the centre, a Biedermeier dining table and Swedish country chairs sit under a fanciful umbrella light reminiscent of a Fortuny lamp.
Nearby, a daybed looks out to the new pool Gray designed.
Large pieces of furniture proved problematic because of the low ceiling and the way the floor, once outdoors, slopes for drainage.
“Things that sit on the ground, without legs, seemed to be more forgiving,” Gray says, pointing out a pair of vibrant orange, floor-hugging Togo love seats by Ligne Roset.
“The house merges the modern and the 1930s and still works,” Borden says. He adds: “Melinda has honoured the tradition by introducing it to her architectural language.”
Musings
The other night, when Borden was sitting on the daybed, the sliding door open to the cool air, the analogy hit him: The sheet of glass was like what one would see at a contemporary museum.
“A modern display case showing off an old piece of work,” he says, “in a whole new context”.
