Cool houses I'll never own...

When the Los Angeles–based firm Stayner Architects purchased Wave House in 2018 for $360,000 from the City of Palm Desert, little did they know what lay buried beneath. The house had remained vacant and in disrepair for years before father and son began the painstaking process to assess and upgrade the home’s infrastructure and efficiency.

“Everything was in fairly bad repair,” says Jessy Moss, recalling her first impression of seeing the 1961 post-and-beam home on Zillow. But one feature that caught her eye—and hinted to her that the house might be worth a visit—was the cluster of circular pavers that enlivened the driveway. Later, after she and her husband, Steve Jocz, bought the home, they had new concrete pavers laid in a similar pattern.

Klopf Architecture updated this Eichler with a radiant floor heating system, re-stained paneling, and a new office/guest room filled with Eichler hallmarks like dark bronze door handles.

Built with a steel frame, the Frost House features panels of styrofoam between aluminum sheets for the exterior walls and styrofoam between plywood for the roof and floors. Bold, primary colors accentuate its geometric form. Shortly after Karen Valentine and Bob Coscarelli purchased the home in 2016, they began to unearth nuggets of information about its pedigree. Their realtor had provided a brochure that identified the prefab as designed by architect Emil Tessin for the now-defunct Alside Homes Corporation based out of Akron, Ohio, which had held a patent for the structure’s aluminum paneling. Their new neighbors provided a stack of Alside Homes sales materials, floor plans of various models, and even a script that had been written for salespeople during home tours. They determined that the Frost House had been a sales model for the company, and that Tessin had been the son of Emil Albert Tessin, the legal guardian of Florence Knoll.

Located in an affluent suburb of Los Angeles that's known for its expansive views of the Pacific Ocean, the Henbest House is a rejuvenation of a California classic. The existing structure was built in 1966 and originally designed by the iconic midcentury-modern Architect Pierre Koenig—who is known for his case study houses. The new design upgrades the building envelope and MEPs, updates the finishes, and gently renovates and expands the floor plan to accommodate the current owners, while still respecting the home's architectural roots.

Main Stay House by Matt Fajkus Architecture | Photography: Charles Davis Smith

Once immortalized by master architectural photographer Julius Shulman and currently being considered as a historic landmark in Los Angeles County, this four-bedroom, two-bath residence was built in 1954 by builder and craftsman Ken McLeod to be his personal home. In 1964 architect Rufus Turner restored the rear after a fire damaged the living room.

With his son, William, watching, architect Noah Walker tries out the floor-to-ceiling Schüco glass doors he integrated into a guesthouse he designed off an existing barn for Nathan Frankel, an amateur violinist, in Beverly Hills, California. The new portion features an open living-dining area. See more glass houses we love!

Similar to his Falling Waters masterpiece, Tirranna was built on water and next to a waterfall. In fact, the word itself comes from an Aboriginal word meaning “running waters.”