Robert and Josephine Chuey House

Robert and Josephine Chuey House

Located atop a Los Angeles hill, Robert and Josephine Chuey’s house has remarkable views of the city below it. Correspondence between the Chueys and Richard Neutra demonstrates how carefully the clients and their architect considered the orientation of the house. Set amidst nature, the building is surrounded by lemon, olive, flowering apple, orange, narcissus, lilac, eucalyptus, and cypress trees. Josephine and Robert Chuey intended to use the home to host intellectual and cultural gatherings. In addition, Neutra designed a studio space for Josephine Chuey, a poet and artist, with soaring, ten-foot-high ceilings and natural light that entered through two glass walls. In fact, the couple expressed a preference for higher than average ceilings which were carried throughout the house. Neutra was deeply invested in the project, and he frequently visited the work site and his clients to survey the project’s progress. He was supported by a team that included the project architect John Blanton, the contractor Walter Johnson, and the landscape architect Jocelyn Domela.

Adapted from Neutra – Complete Works by Barbara Lamprecht (Taschen, 2000), p. 301.