7726 W 81st St
Playa Del Rey, CA 90293, USA

Binder House

Architect Rebecca Binder first made her mark on the Southern California architecture scene with a colorful, High Tech condominium building on a lot she purchased in Santa Monica.

Since the building served as her home as well as her design project, she was free to fully express her architectural ideas, with the result being a swift launching of her career. In 1986, Binder completed her next residence, in Playa del Rey, and was likewise able to work free of constrictions as the owner-architect.

This house features an assortment of rectangular volumes, all topped by front-gabled roofs that unify the design and tie it to the rest of the neighborhood.

It starts low with a one-story front garage clad in gray stucco and connected to a concrete block front gate; the garage shields a small front courtyard from the street and provides privacy for the front of the main house, to which it is connected with a flat-roofed volume. The house itself is two stories in height, set at the back of the lot and appearing as two matching gable-roofed, rustic wood-clad buildings connected in the middle. The main entrance is framed in a mixture of smooth and rough concrete block sheltering a recessed doorway.

The house’s variety of materials, volumes, and masses add up to a functional and graceful arrangement that is Deconstructivist in style but very human in feel.

Photo courtesy Architectural Resources Group