Oftentimes when modernism isn’t understood, the owner tries
to make sense of the structure by incorporating familiar elements the usually
are in line with their own sensibilities, but out of line with the architecture
of the property. This Palmer & Krisel-designed home in Whittier recently
fell victim to flippers who turned this modernist property into what appears to
be a cross between Tuscan and Traditional. Selling back in May as a fixer for $325,000,
this four bedroom, two bathroom 1,333 square foot home now has a price tag of
$519,000. This includes a detached two car garage and an in-ground pool on a
5,900 square foot lot.
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| Original facade of home from 1955-May 2015. |
The front of the home has been recently modified to include
new stucco, white vinyl windows and stacked stone accents. Originally (and up
until May) the façade of the home had the original ¾-height board and batten
siding extending to the base of the long, linear bedroom windows. Now the lines
of the home have been confused, as the stacked stone extends halfway up the
base of the home and creates an unintended void of space between the window
base and stone veneer, with the new
white vinyl windows popping out from the façade, hovering over the stone and drawing
attention to themselves where the original windows were designed to recede.
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| Driveway and garage - lots of orangy-brown here |
The detached two-car garage is located at the rear of the
property, and accessed via a darkly-stained faux stone driveway which passes
through an overly ornate Tuscan-inspired gate. Entering the home through the
Tuscan-inspired front door, one walks into the main living, dining and kitchen
area. The demising wall between the kitchen and dining room has been removed,
which opens the space yet removes privacy. It also creates a partially
drywalled ceiling and partially open, beamed celotex ceiling in the great room.
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| Living and Dining Room - Fireplace, ceilings and clerestories luckily are still intact |
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| Dining and Kitchen - removal of demising wall created two ceiling types |
Luckily the clerestories and original sandstone fireplace
and surround are still in place in the living-dining-kitchen. The original
sliding glass doors have been replaced with French doors, which still let in
quite a bit of light into the living area even though the mullioned panes of the
doors add separation to the outdoors that the sliders did not. The kitchen has received
a typical flipper makeover, with granite counters and stainless steel appliances,
while the cabinets are heavy, traditional and overly ornate in appearance.
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| Kitchen - lights and wall cabinet placement are questionable |
There’s a couple of things that instantly throw us off with
the kitchen: The cabinet placement is somewhat off, with a pair of upper
cabinet boxes bookended on both walls of the kitchen giving an almost random,
lonely appearance. They add valuable storage but read more as an afterthought
rather than a thoughtful addition, a drawback to the overly zealous
wall-removal craze. The other thing we got a chuckle out of is the ornate
Victorian-style flush-mounted lights on the vaulted kitchen ceiling. They seem
almost frozen in stature, permanently suspended in mid-swing, never able to lie
level.
The bathrooms have been remodeled in a similar mix of
styles, with the hall bath incorporating granite counters, floor tile on the
tub surround, and Moroccan-styled mosaic mirrors. The master bath incorporates
the same details, and adds in a pair of glass vessel sinks.
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| Master bathroom wit a mix of styles, including vessel sinks |
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| Master Bedroom |
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| Secondary bedroom |
The bedrooms still have their vaulted, beamed celotex
ceilings, with the master offering French doors out to the pool area. Out back,
the large, rectangular pool has been rehabbed, but just about everything in the
backyard now is some shade of orange-y brown, from the house to the concrete to
the fence and to the gate. Oddly, the exterior chimney is two-tone, with the
upper half painted black – we’ve never seen this look before and it’s
definitely one of the more curious decisions. At least most of it is only
paint, and can easily be changed to a less heavy color.
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| Backyard - What's going on with that chimney? |
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| Backyard with a whole lotta orange-y brown going on |
On a positive, the home is move-in ready, with a pool and
upgraded electrical. It’s just been altered with several different styles, some
which compete with each other, many of which add a sense of heaviness to the
home, and none of which are the actual architectural style of the home. There’s
always hope for a restoration.
