Austrian-born architect RM Schindler, one of the undisputed mavericks of the early to mid-twentieth century, worked for Frank Lloyd Wright for a decade before landing in Los Angeles, where he merged the rigid geometries of early European modernism with the laid-back lifestyle of California.
In the mid-1940s, Dr. Richard Lechner and his wife commissioned a modernist architect to build a house in a forest glade at the foot of LA’s Studio City. Hidden behind a zig-zagging wall draped with bougainvillea and hugging its sloping site, the house is now hailed as one of the last masterpieces of the modernist Mandarin and reflects its experimental chutzpah and its integration with long-term materials, vernacular rhythms.
The Studio City home is wrapped in privacy by its wooded hillside setting.
Sterling Red for Sotheby’s International Realism
Related: Midcentury architect Craig Ellwood’s case study House 16 in Bel Air lists for $5.4 million.
According to American Modernist, architect Paul Sterling Hogue added a two-story addition with a guest room and bath in the mid-1980s. It was then acquired in 1992, 1999, 2004, and again in 2008, by renowned designer Pamela Shamshiri of Studio Shamshiri and her then-husband, film editor Hans Hall.
Shamshiri spearheaded a two-year update and overhaul described on his firm’s website as less restoration than “excavation” and the removal of numerous shoddy renovations that left the original structure unrecognizable. Sheetrock was removed to reveal Schindler’s plywood-paneled walls and angular stainless steel fireplace. Throughout, key elements were restored or remodeled, while a purposeful evolution prepared the home for 21Stcentury The firm’s website says the house is “decisively a Schindler. It’s not just your grandmother’s Schindler.”
Tax records show Shamshri sold the house in 2019 for $4.88 million to its current owners, German multidisciplinary artist Albert Ohlin and his wife, Ester Freund Ohlin, who oversaw an exterior restoration by architecture studio Esker Gonwardina, as well as termoto landscaping and regional restoration.
The updates are true to Schindler’s commitment to humble materials used in innovative ways.
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Related: L.A.’s iconic Stahl House is listed for $25 million
Today, the 4,000-square-foot house still known as the Lechner House spans two floors with large bay windows that fill the house with light filtered through the surrounding trees. Built-in Schindler sofas, now covered in marigold velvet, flank the living room fireplace, and a wall of glass opens the dining area to a large, tree-shaded deck above the pool. The long, narrow galley kitchen is joined by a breakfast nook and family room. Four bedrooms and three bathrooms, plus a powder room, include a lower-level primary suite with a plywood bathroom that opens onto a flagstone terrace that leads to the pool.
The house, which sits on more than a third of an acre, was designated a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Landmark in 2013 and falls under the Mills Act, which deals with substantially lower property tax restrictions. Stephanie
Stephanie Schumacher at Sotheby’s Intel Realty and Compass’ George Penner co-listed for $6.5 million.
Click here for more photos of the historic Los Angeles residence.
Sterling Red for Sotheby’s International Realism
The authors
Mark David
