An Architect’s Own Home Hidden Inside a Secret Garden (House Tour)

I always want to be connected to nature, and so the greater feeling I can have that I'm almost just living outside but being protected gives me the greatest happiness, and I think I get that here. I'm Ron Radziner. I'm the design partner at Marble Radziner. We're architects, landscape architects, interior designers, and builders, and this is my own home, Mandeville Canyon. The home is located in Mandeville Canyon, which is a canyon that's about 10 minutes from the west side of Los Angeles and the area of Santa Monica and Brentwood, but when you're back in this canyon, you can feel like you're just in the middle of nature in the mountains somewhere, and you have no idea that Los Angeles is really just around the corner a few minutes away. You know, in the case of this home, it was very much about this incredible location, this site with these beautiful native California sycamore trees and the California live oaks up on the hillside, and then it was speaking to my family, my wife, my two kids, about our, I guess, needs or desires for this place, and then I have the lucky opportunity to try to put that all together into what for me really just becomes, I don't know, hopefully if I've done it right, for me it just becomes this beautiful feast for my eyes every day where I just get to live in a sculpture I've created, and you know, whether everything works perfectly or not, honestly, is the least of my concerns. It's really about, what does it feel like? So in this case, you come in off of Mandeville Canyon Road over a bridge into our parking area surrounded by sycamore trees, then turn and come towards the front door on a path where you really get close to these sycamore trees that are engaging the home, and you begin, I think, to understand that the trees and the home are really all one idea. So then you come into this great room space, the living dining kitchen, and the whole house, I think, kind of comes together there with these big expansive views out to the garden, the pool, the hillside beyond. In the behind the kitchen, there's a pantry, a guest suite, and then the laundry and the garage. Off of the great room, there's a staircase that heads straight up to the second floor and drops you off into our den, TV room, study room, game room, and from that space you can go in two different directions, either to the primary bedroom or the other direction to our kids rooms. There's two bedrooms back there, and then all the bedrooms have quite a bit of privacy from each other and really focus just directly to that garden view. For this home, I wanted to use materials that did not need maintenance, did not need to be painted. One of the important materials are a brick which comes from Denmark. It's from a company called Peterson. Then there's metal panels which are zinc. It ages beautifully to me, kind of weathers, and I like the darkness, but I like that it's not perfection either. Then of course there's all the glass, the windows. Inside the home, all of the wood is oak. It's a dark stained oak on the floors, on the ceilings, the cabinetry. It's really just all one material. In the bathrooms, we used a travertine type of limestone. The tones and the colors of the travertine tie back to the colors of the The feeling I was looking for in this home was one where no matter where you were in the house, you always felt in contact with the surrounding gardens and the environment. I think it's a reason that I chose to use pretty dark colors within the home. I think it allows the home to sort of recede. It's all about the windows becoming almost like paintings on the wall. I also love that there is times or aspects of this house where it's almost like you're in a cave, and I mean this in the best possible way, that you're almost in this cave with darkness, sort of a sanctuary, a warmth, and then the surroundings beyond. I love this home. I think the space that I've come to love the most, and maybe this is because I'm not sure I expect it to be as strong as it is. I knew I would like it, but it's the primary bathroom. I really love the way it opens to the rear yard, and how the light pours in from the garden. I think it's a home with a really clear point of view, and if anything I think for clients of mine, it's an opportunity for them to see that a fairly simple idea can manifest itself into creating a really rich and kind of complex and visually interesting environment.