Historic Wallace Neff dwelling restored after hidden plans discovered

When restoring their 1925 Wallace Neff-designed dwelling in La Cañada Flintridge, Pete and Teri Lauenstein needed kitchen tile that might make their dwelling period-accurate. They turned to Malibu Tile Works, however the inventory colours weren’t proper — too shiny, too lemony, not heat sufficient. So a brand new earthy yellow hue was blended and dubbed “Lauenstein Yellow.”

“We’re pretty picky,” mentioned Teri Lauenstein of the couple’s meticulous work over roughly 20 years on the historic Spanish Colonial Revival dwelling that overlooks the San Gabriel Mountains and is emblematic of the famed architect’s grand however intimate type.

The dwelling wanted a variety of work once they purchased it in 2002 for $1.5 million. Shag carpet coated authentic terra-cotta flooring, high-gloss paint coated practically each picket floor and overgrown weeds crowded the yard. They had needed a historic dwelling with an old-world Spanish really feel to match two Renaissance chairs they purchased in Granada, Spain, however that dream turned one thing a lot greater. Since then, they’ve spent $3.7 million on their four-bedroom, six-bathroom, 4,962-square-foot “treasure,” as Wallace Neff historian and Realtor Bret Parsons calls it.

The restoration on the Mills Act Property, which supplies tax incentives to repairs historic properties, has required an ecosystem of consultants, together with a colorist and curatorial rug service provider. Each has come to know the home intimately. The Lauensteins, who spent years scouring architectural salvage websites for objects together with wrought iron, {hardware}, lighting and doorways to brighten their dwelling, largely stewarded the transformation, with occasional steerage from inside designers.

Teri Lauenstein, 64, a healthcare advisor, and Pete Lauenstein, 70, an engineering design supervisor, think about themselves custodians of historical past. “It’s important that people appreciate and understand the vision these architects had,” Teri Lauenstein mentioned. “It feels special having this time here, raising our three kids in this home.”

Their youngsters, now of their 20s and early 30s, have all moved out, however in childhood “were along for the ride” throughout renovations, mentioned center little one Julianne Lauenstein. “I don’t remember a time when we weren’t shopping for antiques; it’s what we did on weekends.”

Neff, along with his roster of movie star shoppers, designed Southern California properties that appear to perpetually open. Everything aligns — entrance to again, inside to exterior. Views via one archway are framed by one other, drawing the attention deeper into the house.

“Neff homes are exceedingly romantic,” mentioned Parsons. “Everywhere you turn, there’s a flourish, a nuance, a detail. There’s a bold statement that makes you sit and contemplate.”

Off the entry and thru an archway, the architectural coronary heart of the century-old dwelling soars upward: the lounge’s open-beam, 25-foot ceiling with its authentic deep teal stain. Substantial double-arch sliding glass doorways that pocket into partitions are mirrored on east and west partitions. The association creates a breezy walk-through from the entrance yard to the rear terrace. Cast-stone columns with ornate capitals bisect the thresholds.

At both finish of the room: a big cast-stone fire and a hand-painted opera balcony — the latter, a Neff riff on medieval church buildings, together with these columns.

Neff’s genius consists of extending the lounge’s pitched ceiling outward over a coated loggia, linking the inside-outside rooms in stellar Southern California trend. The Lauensteins have thematically used the teal coloration on different ceilings, together with an identical hue on the outside trim.

Within a yr after shifting in, the couple found the unique home plans that had been secreted away. “There was this weird vent, a furnace return, and a tiny cabinet with a door above it,” mentioned Pete Lauenstein. “The rolled-up plans were inside.” The plans revealed the kitchen’s authentic breakfast nook, which the couple later reinstated.

On the kitchen partitions, the “Lauenstein Yellow” tile cascades down into polychrome patterns. The couple additionally sourced interval Moorish floral and geometric tile patterns from books, now piled of their library. Echoing that signature yellow hue: a walnut island, a hammered barrel-vaulted copper hood, a copper farmhouse sink and replicated Twenties cabinetry painted “Matchstick” by Farrow & Ball.

“Prepare to get dizzy,” mentioned Teri Lauenstein, revealing the first lavatory, a riot of teal, orange, cream and yellow. The relentless look is predicated on tile work in Montecito’s Casa del Herrero, the 1925 property of industrialist George Fox Steedman. “We have expensive taste in tile; it was a big chunk of our budget,” she mentioned.

The ceramic work in different loos is calmer, however the yard amps the look with the pool’s fountain and spa. It’s backed by a mission-style silhouette tiled with an urn overflowing with foliage. The Tunisian manufacturing facility that makes the pool’s braided-pattern waterline tile, common within the Twenties, hadn’t fired it in many years.

That stage of interval element extends to Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper, ball-trim swag valances and wall air vents laser-cut in Moorish patterns. Most of the house’s antiques are Spanish and Peruvian, with some French, Chinese and English items; one weighty armoire needed to be craned in.

Those parts spherical out Neff’s romance-driven design, which incorporates wrought-iron rejas that forged dramatic shadows worthy of the noir traditional “Double Indemnity.”

There are, in actual fact, only a few locations the place the twenty first century intrudes, save for a flat display screen TV or two and the kitchen’s plumbed, built-in Miele espresso system.

The backyard stage holds a media room, visitor room, laundry room and a cedar-lined 636-bottle wine cellar carved from one of many dwelling’s authentic eccentricities: a secret tunnel. It ran from the facet of the house into the chauffeur’s bed room, accessed via a disguised panel in a bathe wall.

“We’d play Capture the Flag, running through the tunnel; there are a lot of great hiding spaces in the house,” mentioned Julianne Lauenstein.

The Lauensteins’ final main effort was the yard, completed in 2022. The pristine look, edged by Japanese boxwood, is a world away from the ragged stretch that greeted them once they moved in. The inspiration: Twenties Southern California property gardens created by A. E. Hanson.

Sentinels stand on the plot’s 4 corners: kousa dogwood, favored for its purple accents. A towering freestanding fire and sitting space flanked by olive bushes anchor one finish, and on the opposite, the pool space. Terraces descend — illuminated by suspended Moroccan lamps — planted with oaks, fruit bushes (“Pete’s produce”), camellias and azaleas, all set amid stone paths and benches.

The couple takes the Mills Act obligations, corresponding to sustaining their dwelling’s historic character and adhering to design tips, critically. The property has been on the annual La Cañada Spring Home Tour and has hosted varied sister metropolis occasions. The house is certainly one of simply two Wallace Neff residences in La Cañada Flintridge.