Casa Kuderna suffered from ill-advised alterations in the years after its 1956 completion. Worse, a foreclosing lender neglected the house for a long period after 2008. Few modern California houses of the classic postwar era endured such mistreatment and yet managed to avoid demolition.
A Transparent Floor Plan
As restored, the floor plan links the separate living and sleeping pavilions, which allows light in from multiple directions. All but invisible modern climate control facilitated the removal of unsightly overhangs and sun-blocking additions that had defaced the design. Typically, the temperate California climate allows the occupants to open up the sliding glass doors to cooling breezes.
Moreover, all that glass permits not just sunlight to flood inside, but opens up the house to grand vistas. Given the view-rich yet mostly flat Hollywood Hills site, Ellwood Associates skillfully framed the views employing a simple H-plan. However, only from a birds-eye vantage point hanging in mid-air can anyone see the entire design in full. Instead of immediately seeing the whole, at Casa Kuderna, one experiences a sequence of impressions, not a grasp of the complete structure.
First seen as one arrives, floating dramatically above the carport, is a smaller steel-framed glass box. This is a studio or guest house, fully separated from the main structure itself. It connects only via an extension of the roof, allowing dry entry from the carport on rainy days. There, an unobtrusive entrance door dramatically opens up to the view between the two pavilions.
A Less Symmetrical Program
However, interior space here is not precisely symmetrical along an axis as at the Kubly and Smith Houses. One of the arms of the H is the living-dining space, with a floating, steel-framed, brick-encased hearth, very much like the one at the Smith House. The other side of the H contains two fully private 1-bedroom suites. Further, as renovated, the formerly separate kitchen is no longer walled-off from the open-plan public space for living and dining.
In contrast to the often inexpensive finishes of the 1950s, the floors now are a whiteish poured terrazzo, rather than carpet or linoleum. The original jalousies and vast swathes of single-pane glass remain. However, the kitchen is no longer precisely what was originally designed. One example: In the guest house, the Formica kitchen counters of the typical modern California house were re-installed. Yet a pricier, longer-lasting material was utilized in the principal kitchen, with its sleek high-tech appliances.
A Careful Restoration With an Ellwood Specialist
Renovation architect Barton Jahncke worked carefully to not precisely restore but to renovate the structure in the period spirit. Jahncke sparingly employed some of the deluxe materials favored by many buyers now that these icons are worth millions of dollars. Sadly, the affordable Modernism of the post-1945 heyday of the modern California house is just a fading memory.
Indeed, houses that cost between $10 and $20 thousand to build between 1945 and 1955, and perhaps double that in the 1960s, now cost millions to re-create. Code requirements for energy efficiency, subterranean foundations, slope stabilization and more make any total re-creation exorbitant. That is, when it is even possible (the sheer amount of glass walls in many Ellwood designs are next to impossible to build anew. And code requires double-pane, low-energy-loss glass — nearly always).
Below is a 2018 tour of the restored Casa Kuderna hosted by renovating architect Barton Jahnke (its full length is 9.5 minutes). In the YouTube video he points out the (few) alterations from the original materials and plans:
Simple and Spare Interiors That Need Not Avoid Color
Color accents at Casa Kuderna evoke interwar De Stijl with bright yellows (in the kitchen and the guest suite’s spiral stair for access), red (on the front door) and deep blue in the guest suite. Per Barton Jahnke, these were the accent colors chosen by Ellwood and his architect-partner James Tyler.
Accordingly, today’s Casa Kuderna would perfectly accommodate Ellwood’s abstract paintings. He himself explained that “[in painting he] could confront outer chaos with an order consisting of harmonious relationships.” This statement also serves perfectly as a summation of the residential masterworks his firm bequeathed to us.
In summary, we can say that the renovation saved a house few would have thought could be rescued. Order restored; Casa Kuderna’s rare harmonies preserved for future generations. The residence, now with an above-ground lap pool, is available separately for $3,750,000 or can be acquired with the adjacent vacant lot for an additional $1,495,000.
** UPDATE ** As of late September 2024, Casa Kuderna has been leased and is no longer offered for sale.
