Bonnet House

Bonnet House

Richard Neutra uses new approaches for the Bonnet’s house to achieve his enduring goal of creating a design suited to its site. The house follows the terrain of the steep Hollywood hill it is located on. This sharp incline is echoed by the shed roof, which parallels the land below with its strong diagonal line. The building is divided between two sections: a lower, stuccoed cube housing the garage and storage room which projects out from the hill and the main portion of the house above, which is sheathed in redwood so that it recedes back into the hill. In an uncharacteristic design decision, Neutra set the kitchen at an inward angle that breaks from the otherwise rectilinear composition of the house. He also departs from precedent by leading a bold, stucco staircase across the façade. This staircase leads to a patio, which is separated from the living room with a glass wall. Elsewhere, one of the bedrooms also features a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass, marking a transition in Neutra’s design practice away from narrow steel casement windows towards a more expansive model.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 161.