23524 Malibu Colony Rd
Malibu, CA 90265, USA

Stevens House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance

The Stevens House is a significant example of the work of Los Angeles architect John Lautner, and an excellent example of Modernist residential architecture. The property is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level under Criterion C as the work of a master architect that possesses high artistic values. The house was designed by John Lautner, one of the twentieth centuries and southern California’s most important architects. He was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, and adopted Wright’s style of “organic architecture” which is evidenced in the philosophy and design of the Stevens House. He worked during the post-war period of second-generation Modernist architects in southern California, however Lautner did not consider himself a Modernist. He distinguished himself from many of his peers by breaking out of the box and designing each project for the site and the client’s needs. As a result, each building is distinctive and unique and holds its own mark of significance.

Completed in 1968, the Stevens House has not yet achieved fifty years of age. However, because of the substantial body of scholarly information on the impact and influence of John Lautner, sufficient time has passed to fully understand the property’s historical significance. The property meets Criteria Consideration G because of its exceptional importance. The design is a highly innovative solution for the site and the client: a family house with ample light and views, and a pool, on a restrictive lot. The Stevens House was Lautner’s first of several residential buildings he constructed in Malibu, and the first in the Malibu Colony. It was his first use of a reinforced concrete catenary curved shell which proved to be suitable for the harsh beach environment by resisting cracking through compressive strength, the ability to mimic the waves, and Lautner felt it could ride out a tidal wave as well by allowing water to flow through the house.

The Stevens House retains a high level of integrity because it possesses all of its significant features and few alterations have been performed since the house was originally built. In addition, Lautner designed or supervised many of the renovations that were carried out. The property conveys all seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. The period of significance for the house is the 1968 date of construction. This period does not include the alterations Lautner designed in 1981 or the alteration he is speculated to have made. While these alterations are important, they do not define the primary significance of the house, which is the overall design concept.

Malibu Colony
The land of the Malibu Colony was purchased in 1891 by the wealthy Rindge family of Massachusetts. In 1926, facing financial constraints. May Rindge decided to lease standard 30-foot lots to a small number of the wealthy Hollywood elite on which to build vacation homes.'^ During the 1920s, Los Angeles was considered an overnight trip from Malibu Colony. As the renters were spending money to build a home on a parcel of land they did not own, they did not expend great amounts of effort or money into the design of these homes. The homes during this period were characterized as beach cottage architecture.’'* By 1936 May Rindge again found herself in financial straits and was forced to sell the land; the Malibu Colony was created. Those who bought land in the Malibu Colony generally built Spanish or Modem style homes on the narrow lots. Ownership of the land led the wealthy residents to expand building larger houses and adding luxuries like tennis courts to the Colony.

With the construction of John Lautner’s Stevens House, the wealthier elements of Malibu society began to rethink the type of structure that could be built on the narrow lots. Well-known architects were hired to design unique homes for these lots. The gated Malibu Colony continues its exclusive tradition today, remaining home to many famous movie stars and members of the Hollywood elite. The Stevens House was not the first to break the mold, but it sparked an architectural competition among Malibu’s wealthier inhabitants. The Stevens House was the first home Lautner designed in Malibu, and the only Lautner house built in Malibu Colony, however he designed a number of other residential buildings in Malibu.’® These buildings include the Garwood Residence, 1970; the Segel Residence, 1980; the Krause Residence, 1982; the Ring Residence, 1984, the Sagheb House, 1990. Architectural historian David Gebhard noted in his guide to Los Angeles architecture that, “The Malibu Colony continues to acquire houses of distinguished design. ...Within it are houses designed by John Lautner, Richard Meier, Craig Ellwood, and others. Since the 1960s, John Lautner has designed and overseen a number of fascinating houses on the Malibu coast. Most of these are of reinforced concrete devised in a highly organic form.”

Stevens Ownership and Chronology
The Stevens House has only had three owners; the original ownership lasted for thirty-six years. Hired by Mr. and Mrs. Dan Stevens to design their family home, Lautner informed them that they could have either a cave or a fishbowl; they choose a fishbowl.’* Apparently not the first architect to be asked by the Stevens family, he was the only one able to design their desired home on the small restrictive lot. Mr. Stevens lived in the house with his wife and children until they divorced. Following the divorce, Stevens remained in the house eventually remarrying. Upon his death, the house was left to his second wife. In addition to their family home, Lautner also designed a flower shop (Flowers that Bloom in the Spring Tra-La, Brentwood, CA, 1982, altered beyond recognition) and two un-built hotels for Dan Stevens. Mrs. Stevens sold the residence in 2004 to Steve Austin, who updated the bathrooms and converted part of the basement into a screening room. The current owner, Michael LaFetra, purchased the house in 2007. Mr. La Fetra, a knowledgeable enthusiast of Southern California modernist architecture, plans to restore the Stevens House to the 1968 period of significance using the original design drawings.

John Lautner
John Edward Lautner was born in Michigan in 1911 to John and Vida Lautner. He was one oftwo children. In 1934, Lautner married Mary Faustina Roberts with whom he had five children, four daughters and two sons. Divorcing in 1950, he would later marry the wife of a former business associate.

From 1933 to 1939, Lautner apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright as a Taliesin Fellow in Wisconsin and Arizona. During this time, he served as supervisor to the architect on such projects as Fallingwater (Mill Run, PA, 1935) and the Johnson Wax Museum (Racine, WI, 1936-39). He moved to Los Angeles, a city he claimed to hate, in 1938, and continued to work for Wright until he established his own practice constructing his first independent home in 1940.

Lautner worked at the same time as the second generation of modernist architects in southern California; the students of the founders of the movement. Yet Lautner does not fully fit into this category. He was one of the few students who moved beyond his teacher, taking in what Wright had to teach him and developing it into his own style.^° “Of all the architects who passed through Wright’s sphere, only R.M. Schindler, Bruce Goff(who never studied or worked with Wright), and Lautner managed to drive Wright’s ideas beyond the master.”^' Lautner worked on a number of Wright projects in Southern California including the Sturges House (Los Angeles, CA, 1939), Bell House (Los Angeles, CA, 1940), Eagle feather (Malibu, CA, 1941), Ennis House (Los Angeles, CA, 1941)^^ and Mauer House (Los Angeles, CA, 1941-46).

Lautner’s professional association with Wright ended in 1943. During World War fi, with non-military construction at a standstill, Lautner was forced to find jobs in the defense industry where he gained experience in contracting and superintending. In 1944, due to personal financial concerns, Lautner joined the architectural firm of Douglas Honnold. The two worked well together, designing houses and commercial buildings including two Coffee Dan’s restaurants (Los Angeles, CA, 1946). The designs for the Coffee Dan’s restaurants established the basis for his later designs for Henry’s Drive-ins and Googie’s restaurant.^^ Lautner ended his connection with Honnold in 1947. Following his break with Honnold, Lautner established his own architecture practice that same year.

In 1947, Lautner completed two of his first major commissions, the Carling House in Los Angeles and the Desert Hot Springs Motel, He did not become a licensed architect until 1951 when he finally passed the structural portion of the examination. Some of his most notable southern California projects include the Desert Hot Springs Motel (Desert Hot Springs, CA, 1947), the Gantvoort House (La Canada Flintridge, CA, 1949), Googie’s coffee shop (Los Angeles, CA, 1949; demolished 1989), Crenshaw Methodist Church (Los Angeles, CA, 1956), the Pearlman Mountain Cabin (Idyllwild, CA, 1957), the Chemosphere/Malin House (Los Angeles, CA, 1960), the Elrod House (Palm Springs, CA, 1968), and the Walstrom House (Los Angeles, CA, 1969). Lautner was appointed a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects for Excellence in Design in 1970. He was named Olympic Architect for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In 1993 he was presented the Gold Medal from the Los Angeles ALA. chapter for his lifetime achievement. He was working on a number of projects when he died in 1994 at the age of 83.

One of Lautner’s most notable designs was for Googie’s (demolished), a Los Angeles coffee shop designed in 1949. The name of the restaurant became synonymous with space age, car culture architecture. As defined by Alan Hess, author of Googie Redux, “Googie’s is a sub-category of mid-century Modem that is bolder, more exaggerated in forms. Although ridiculed by many, the style was taken up by numerous architects becoming a symbol ofthe commercial strip and the 1950s; fitting squarely into the car-oriented culture of the period. Lautner’s Googie’s, the prototype for and namesake of the style, was constructed of steel and glass as wood and concrete were more expensive and harder to obtain, due to supply shortages. Lautner’s design changed the expected orientation of a diner; patrons no longer faced the kitchen and serving areas, but rather faced out, to the street. The signage was designed as an integral aspect of the building. By 1952 steel was in short supply. ^' However Googie architecture continued to be constructed with whatever materials were available.'^ The buildings had large signs and interestingly shaped roofs and walls. The streets of Los Angeles were lined with Googie style drive-ins, diners, and coffee shops. Douglas Haskell, editor of House and Home wrote in 1952 that Googie architecture had “brought modem architecture down from the mountains and set ordinary clients, ordinary people free.”'' Lautner’s designs for coffee shop architecture may have sparked a popular design movement, but it proved to be a means for him to move forward with his career designing custom residential architecture.

John Lautner designed over fifty architecturally significant structures in the Southern California area alone. His focus was primarily on residential architecture, but he also designed a few restaurants and commercial buildings as well. The majority of his work was in Southern California, however he also designed structures throughout the world. From his arrival in Los Angeles Lautner clearly stated that he hated ‘ugly’ Los Angeles architecture: Oh, it was depressing...it was so ugly I was physically sick for the first year I was here...if you tried to figure out how to make a row of buildings ugly, you couldn’t do any better than it’s been done [here].”" Despite his dislike of Los Angeles buildings, his numerous modernistic structures fit right into the local architectural landscape as Los Angeles has one of the country’s most impressive collections of modern architecture.

Lautner one of the twentieth centuries and southern California’s most important architects, is also perhaps one of the most misunderstood. Lautner’s designs deal with the interplay of space, nature, the built environment and human beings. His designs are an exploration of the interaction between land and space; they reflect the scenery while functioning as a shelter from which one is to look out upon and partake of that scenery.

During his lifetime, Lautner’s designs were often seen as foolish and silly structures built for the rich Hollywood elite. Lautner usually worked from minimal plans, finalizing many of the details on site. He enjoyed experimenting with new ideas and materials, and designed a wide variety of building types and styles. In general, he emphasized the interior space created by the building rather than the structural forms.

Lautner’s designs are often described as futuristic, a portrayal that greatly troubled him. He felt that describing his buildings as futuristic was a misunderstanding of their purpose. Lautner preferred the label “organic architecture” a term coined by Frank Lloyd Wright. His designs were based on free form plans, were remarkably varied and were unique for each job. He enjoyed trying out new materials and ideas; some worked and some did not. His designs were an exploration of the interaction between people, buildings and the surrounding environment. When the terrain was too steep to build a traditional building Lautner came up with the design for the Chemosphere, which sits atop a single steep pylon. When the lot was too narrow for a standard house and swimming pool, he designed the Stevens House with the pool tucked under the roof. His designs often played off the surrounding environment like the curved roof of the Stevens House that reflects the waves of the ocean. His buildings interact with nature, working with the surrounding environment.

The requirements for the Stevens House included living, dining and kitchen areas, five bedrooms and bathrooms, a painting studio, children’s playroom and a swimming pool. Lautner recounted how he responded to these requirements in his monograph:

A lot of this size has always been the same: impossible! My first bout with the site and the requirements made me aware of just how difficult it would be to put all desired rooms and spaces on this property, particularly considering building setbacks and height limits. A prior architect had given up on including a pool. When I was first called in, I asked the owner to avoid telling me what he had heard, but rather to express his needs, whatever they might be. He did so, and I went to work on them.

Given the effects of salt air and the resulting maintenance problems, concrete seemed to be the best material to use. Concrete also allowed us to build a catenary curved shell, a form structurally in compression throughout, so there would never be any cracks or leaks following completion. The catenary curve resembles a wave which was suitable for the beach environment. The orientation of the shell reverses in the middle of the house, opening spaces to the ocean on the one side and the mountains on the other. Using five levels m this concrete structure, physically small but unconfined rooms were designed, fitting all the owners’ needs.

The one-of-a-kind Stevens House is a true reflection of Lautner’s adaptable and ever-changing style and unique designs. Lautner viewed each new site as a challenge. His goal was not to find a way of adapting the land to the building but to adapt the building to the land. At the Stevens House, he used the movement of the waves to create a roof design that allowed the structure to be open and spacious feeling even on a very narrow lot. His design also allowed him to include the ubiquitous California swimming pool into the restrictive, narrow lot.

The Stevens House was published in ArchitecturalRecord in 1971 as one oftwenty exceptional houses selected for that year’s awards of excellence and design. They praised the “wave-like concrete structure” which allowed “the intersecting curves [to] expose elevations having windows. The living room and master bedroom thus gain views to the mountains as well as the beach and one of the children’s rooms has a direct outlook on the ocean. This provision of light and views near the middle of the house is one of its best features. A conventional box-like structure on a lot like this one...would have major openings only at the ends.” The article concluded by stating, “It is remarkable that a house on such a small lot has five bedrooms. The architect says this house ‘became not only an exceptionally free solution for the site and client but an interesting and practical potential for high density living.’ If similar houses were placed side by side there would be no windows looking into neighbors’ windows and each house would have lighter, privacy and better views.

Because of the variety of designs and styles employed by Lautner his work was difficult to categorize during his lifetime and therefore little scholarly work was previously published. However, with the benefit of time and recognition his work is currently well documented. John’s eldest daughter, Karol Lautner Peterson, set up the John Lautner Foundation in 1996 following the death of her father in 1994. The foundation was established as a non-profit institution “to celebrate and maintain the work of one of this century’s most creative American architects...The foundation serves as a resource for information about Lautner works and intends to increase active participation in the preservation and maintenance of Lautner buildings.”^* A number of exhibitions have been produced to showcase his work.^® The most recent exhibition took place in 2008 at the Hammer Museum of the University of California, Los Angeles. The exhibition, entitled “Between Earth and Heaven: The Architecture of John Lautner,” was a major retrospective of John Lautner’s career. The introductory text of the exhibit characterizes the importance of Lautner’s work in the following way:

His designs are known for their radical innovation with specific attention to materiality, space and a consciousness of the natural environment...While Lautner has attained a cult-like status in the world of architecture and design, until now his achievement remains little known and often misunderstood by the public at large. . An aesthetic, philosophical and social visionary, Lautner made buildings that continue to amaze architects and patrons alike with their formal variety and freedom, their structural originality and their sculptural force. Lautner’s work has come to represent some of the most important examples of architecture in Southern California...Lautner is often referred to as an architect’s architect and many renowned practitioners, such as Frank Gehry, have cited him as an abiding influence. One can see the influence and legacy of his vision time and again in the work of architects that have followed him.

Each building highlighted in the exhibition was represented by several original drawings with supplementary written narration. The Stevens House was included in the exhibition, as well as featured in the accompanying book.

Conclusion
The Stevens House is highly representative of the work of John Lautner. As with each of Lautner s houses, the Stevens House is unique in its design. The way the concrete catenary curved shells allow for the swimming pool to be tucked under the roof and for the northern and southern ends of the house to be open to the ocean and the mountains, the design allows for an open feeling house on a very closed-in lot. Lautner employed the waves of the ocean in the design of the house. He used the natural environment that was around him confirming the design to the environment rather than the environment to the design. He altered notions of what constitutes and confines space, eliminating constricting forms such as walls and ceilings and had the willingness to work with new materials that allowed arcing rooflines and graceful patterns to take form. The Stevens House was the first structure that Lautner built m Malibu and the only one constructed in the Malibu Colony.

The Stevens House is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level under Criterion C as an exceptional example of the work of architect John Lautner and of Modernist residential architecture in Southern California. His philosophy was to design each house specifically for the site and the client’s needs - “My work is always for the client and determined by their requests.”"*^ The design of the Steven’s House is unique because of its restrictive site and what the client wanted from that site. This creative thinking has created a varied and exceptional body of work. Even though he disliked having a style attributed to his work, and in retrospect his work defies categorization, it is Modernist by nature because of the period in which he worked and the influence he received from studying under Frank Lloyd Wright. Like other Modernists he created open floor plans, used glass and concrete and steel. However, Lautner’s main concern was his use of space and its relation to nature, of finding ways to connect the interior with the exterior and making the architecture part of its surroundings.

Although the Stevens House is less than fifty years old, it is an exceptional example of the work of Lautner and his contribution to the Modernist idiom and sufficient time has passed to understand the property’s historical significance. Lautner’s work is currently well documented with several scholarly books and articles published, in addition to well researched exhibitions. Because his first buildings date to the 1940s it is possible to take a longer look back at his career and understand his philosophy that is evident in his later designs including the Stevens House. The property meets Criteria Consideration G because of its exceptional importance. The design of the Stevens House is an innovative and successful solution for the site and the client; a large family house with ample light and views, and a pool, on a narrow restrictive lot. It is a striking example of nature drawn inward; the catenary curved shells bring light, space and nature into the deepest recesses of the house and provide the necessary privacy from nearby neighbors. The Stevens House would be the first of Lautner’s work to achieve National Register status, an honor long overdue for an architect of Lautner’s stature and remarkable design capabilities.