Los Angeles-based architect William Hefner is not one for hyperbole. He modestly describes a stately home he designed for a lawyer and his wife (an artist) and the couple’s two sons, in the hills of Rustic Canyon: “It’s tall and slender, and doesn’t have a roof, so it reminds me of those Department of Water and Power buildings you see all over California that were built in the ’30s,” he says. “That’s the closest thing I can think of to describe it.” While complimenting the DWP, he dramatically under-sells the three-bedroom home’s light-filled rooms and graceful touches. Much like his work, the title of the new book celebrating his oeuvre, California Homes: Studio William Hefner  (Images Publishing) feels understated, direct and dignified. The project joins eight other single-family homes also featured in the book, all of which were built within the last five of his 20-odd year career working exclusively in Southern California.

The Sacramento native attended architecture school at UCLA and never left. “In my heart of hearts, I thought I would go back up north to the Bay Area after school,” he says, “but I love it down here. There’s an open-mindedness. People are a little idiosyncratic, but it makes them more adventurous, more creative with their choices and more willing to take risks. The landscape is also so appealing. Everything grows.” In fact, the vegetation in the tight-knit Santa Monica enclave where this home was built by Stephen Bloom Construction two years ago was so rambling and overgrown that Hefner feared its classic style would seem out of place.

 

You enlisted Venice-based landscape architect Jay Griffith to help integrate the pale-gray stucco building into its environment with symmetrical plantings of unstructured grasses and native plants—how did that help?

“The old sycamore in the front makes the home feel like it has been there forever.”

Why did you decide to use honed French limestone floors on the main floor, galvanized steel windows with a black patina and raw oak floors that were minimally protected help to create the old European atmosphere?

“The owners didn’t want anything to have a sheen or a reflective surface. The mantels are antique. The brass fixtures are unlacquered. It’s deliberately under-furnished. They wanted it to have an unfinished quality and for the architecture to stand on its own.”

What led to the rooftop art studio?

“They wanted a place where they felt free to be creative, that was really separate from the rest of the home,” he says. “The light up there is always amazing. I’m so jealous of that studio. I wish I were there right now.”

By Christine Lennon

Pictured: The flat finish of muted gray walls and pale limestone floors honor the clients’ desire to avoid reflective surfaces.
Photo courtesy of © California Homes: Studio William Hefner (Master Architects). Published by Images Publishing, 2013

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