John and Etta Rados House

John and Etta Rados House

At the end of a private road, John and Etta Rados’ house steps down the eastern slope of the rocky Palos Verdes Hills. While the site promised privacy, it also offered an expansive panorama that included of the San Pedro Harbor, the Port of Long Beach, the Pacific Ocean, and the Los Angeles and San Gabriel mountains. Designed for the head of a shipbuilding firm and his family, including a son who became a naval architect, the views of sailboats, oil tankers, and other ships would have been of particular interest. Richard Neutra took pains to leave this view unobscured, including with the use of unusually large sheets of glass that did away with the need for joining posts and impeded sightlines. Similarly, extensive sliding glass doors in the master bedroom are hung behind a large beam to extend the scene as far as possible.

The 4,000-square-foot space occupied two stories. Careful detailing in addition to the house’s large size resulted in a two-year construction effort. Working with no specific budget, Neutra employed luxury materials, from mahogany to ruddy, veined marble from Italy, in addition to his signature use of aluminum, stainless steel, and glass. John Rados would have recognized the mahogany, which was used for ceiling beams, from his experience crafting mahogany ballasts for his ships. Fordyce “Red” Marsh, who built twenty-five of Neutra’s designs including this home, was joined by master craftsmen recruited by John Rados, including shipwrights and metalsmiths in his employ. Neutra observed that the house was “built like a ship with many calculated economies, in weight and material.”

Neutra designed both aesthetic and highly practical features for the house, ranging from a free-standing, polished stainless steel fireplace for the living room to cabinetry that housed the owners’ very particular belongings and habits such as the grandchildren’s ice cream sundae glasses. He demonstrated his concern for his clients in one of these cabinet spaces which fit their folding tables with just enough space to accommodate the hand that reached in to grasp them. Neutra created a visual rhythm with repeated design elements such as flanges that both support the stairs on the outdoor aluminum staircase and are miniaturized to buttress the glass shelves in a display case in the entryway. Other features, such as radiantly-heated poolside Terazzo, a state-of-the-art stereo sound system, and a bomb shelter, are demonstrations of the house’s luxury status.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 343.