The Wirick House is a defining example of modern architecture. Designed in 1958 by Calvin Straub, the residence was commissioned by Thomas and Barbara Wirick during a pivotal moment in Straub’s career, as he began collaborating with Conrad Buff and Donald Hensman. This partnership would soon evolve into the influential architectural trio known as Buff, Straub & Hensman. The home is particularly celebrated for its sensitive response to the steep hillside terrain, with bold cantilevered forms and expansive glass surfaces that merge seamlessly with the surrounding environment.
Growing up in the home his parents built, Wally reflects on his family's history and the unique experience of living in such a forward-thinking, design-centric space. He recalls a childhood spent alongside his siblings, exploring the surrounding hillsides that served as a playground for countless neighborhood kids. The house was often the backdrop for lively family gatherings, filled with warmth and connection. Wally attributes the home’s well-preserved legacy to what he describes as a combination of thoughtful design, cherished memories, and a deep appreciation for the architecture that shaped their everyday lives.
From a design standpoint, the Wirick House is built around a clean, modular grid that incorporates slender wooden beams and wide glass panels to create bright, spacious interiors. The main floor overlooks a soaring, double-height living and dining area, with floor-to-ceiling windows that bathe the space in sunlight and open up views of the natural landscape. One of the most distinctive features of the home is the effortless transition between indoor and outdoor spaces, achieved through the careful use of natural materials and a thoughtful, open layout that blurs the boundaries between architecture and nature.
Film - Mick Aure @miccck Producer - Elias Tebache @socalarchitecture Music - Deep Al Brindle @DeepAlBrindle Photography - Open Space Special Thanks - Wally Wirick, Nate Cole & Lilian Pfaff @ModernCaliforniaHouse @LilianPfaff
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From a seven-year-old standpoint who grew up here and matured through the experience,
they pressed the limits of the material and the technology at the time.
And the design, post and beam construction, was new. This kind of open-air thing was
new and different. My name is Wallace Stewart Weyrich. I go by Wally. My mom, Barbara
Jane Wallace and Thomas Monroe Weyrich produced me and the house we're in. Built in 1958.
It was a family project. My dad found a career with Sunset Magazine and both my parents were
art majors in school and designed. My dad was a commercial designer. My mom fell in love with
modernism. She was quite the master of this house. Dad was a designer too and they ran into
Cal Straub who had formed the Buff, Straub and Hensman group and they were out of the school
of USC and off the tree of, frankly, right minimalism and this was it. Purportedly,
I don't really know because I was seven, but dad exchanged graphic design work for part of the
payment on the architectural drawings for this. My brother still has those drawings and so
he's got them digitized. He says they're elegant and he should know. He's a pretty well-known
architect himself. My sister does a lot of art sewing and that sort of thing.
So does the environment produce your talents? We don't know, but we all kind of
followed in suit. Living here was part of, you absorbed what was in design.
They bought the property. There was no house next door, no house on either side. Pretty open.
They bought it for $2,500 and ended up building the house for about $17,000.
The load of bricks for this fireplace was put on the street and my job was to walk it through the
carport, hand it to dad and he'd lower it down in a bucket to the mason who built the
and so there's a picture of me someplace as a buff seven-year-old carrying three bricks
with no shirt on because dad didn't have a shirt on. It was a family project.
And there was what my mom called the golden age of our family when dad was,
he had started working with Sunset Magazine and at that time was making very good money for a young
man who was 27 years old and by the time he was 32 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
So our life changed as he, there was no drugs at that time and
but so he lost his job and lost everything and that was, that turned out to be the advantage
for this house because my parents didn't have any money to do anything to alter it,
to modify it or do anything but just keep it upright and keep it clean and keep it painted
and mom loved it and dad finally sort of came to his, his disease after we had to move him out and
and mom still you know just loved the place and loved the memories and
at one particular point in the 90s I guess maybe early 2000s I can't remember she had
saved up enough and went through it and just refreshed it and put in the elevator because
by the, by that time she was getting to be 75, 80 and walking up these stairs was a keeping her
young but she wasn't liking it so it was the life of the house, all the celebrations, Thanksgiving,
Christmas, no matter what, whether dad was ill or whatever and this was the party house.
When you open those big doors and invite the outdoors in, it becomes what Southern California
is known for, you know, just a beautiful place and a beautiful environment with which to live and
enjoy. In the summertime we had, we had hide-and-seek games that had 50 kids. It was the 50s,
it was the baby boom and there was no air conditioning. There was no air conditioning so
you had flow-through ventilation and louvered windows and you opened the house and you slept
with the fans on or many times my, my parents would, it would get too warm upstairs and they'd
sleep out on the deck. Today we've, we've lost that. I mean we live in one of the few Mediterranean
climates in the world and yet we buy a lot, we take the old house, we scrape it clean and we
build to the legal limits of the house and we build this thing and we air condition it, we stay inside
and we don't enjoy the best weather on the planet and this house will reteach you if you've forgotten
that lesson that it is a beautiful place to live and, and if you can enjoy it while living in a home
why not? Mom passed. I tried to talk her into giving it back to USC. None of those, none of
those kids really were hungry and I didn't feel like, you know, I didn't know, I didn't know how
I felt about selling it so, but sell it we did. But I'm, I'm thrilled that the house is in such
great shape. The owners have put their touches on it and without distract, detracting from
its natural design, how it interacts with the environment and they haven't abused it at all,
you know, which is, which takes a certain kind of character to come in here and realize that
they are, they have a little jewel here that you can't build today. It is a responsibility to
preserve it as best you can and with that comes the, the joy and honorability to,
to invite people in and say this is, this is a little different house. How do you feel sitting
here? You know, does this feel like a regular home to you? It, it actually demands that any
individual that walks in here evaluates their values on design, which is wonderful, I think.
Buff Robin Anderman found that they couldn't do these kinds of glass constructions anymore
because it was the seismic regulations. This is really a study case on, you know,
this is where it was done in the mid 50s. This is a period of design and yes, you can't build this
again. If you want to build something like it, take the lessons from this and find the materials,
maybe it's steel now, you can still make it, make it work. You don't have to buy the cookie cutter
called and that may be where you're comfortable, but if you have any aesthetic values at all, test them.
