Project: California Beach House
Designer: Mayes Office
Project Team: Colby Mayes, Trevor Kidd, Bronson Haffner, Junsuke Sato
Location: Venice, Los Angeles, California, United States
Area: 3,400 sq ft
Photography: Tara Wujcik Photography
Located in the heart of the Venice neighborhood, the Cloy Ave Residence is an embodiment of California beach style living. It was originally a complete remodel of a home and includes additions to an existing home in which every space and element was expanded and updated.
The challenge faced by designers at Mayes Office was to add space and function to the original compact California beach house. The effect achieved was a substantial addition of 734 square feet of space while maintaining the original building structure, exhibiting an efficient and resourceful application of means given the confines of space and structural code at hand. By also observing and accentuating the existing highlights of the structure throughout, the character of the house was completely transformed.
Aesthetically, the house takes its cues from Mayes Office’s previous projects, which was to blur the delineation between the exterior and the interior of the house. The openness of the space enables a fluid indoor-outdoor connection that didn’t exist before. This allows the occupants to flow from the dining room into the living room in a seamless fashion enabling entertainment spaces to have a unified and complete feel to it.
A challenge encountered by Mayes’ designers initially was how to balance the maximum amount of integration with the surrounding landscape, while also maintaining privacy for the family. The privacy was maintained by wood slats that acted as both design and to break up the concrete wall in the front of the house.
The design of the house embraces family life as well as entertaining guests on certain days. Once inside the home, it is evident that detail and consideration was put into every area of the interior to ensure that the exterior flows evenly into the space. Keeping in line with the open-space theme, an industrial-style staircase encased in glass acts as a subtle divider between common living spaces.
A rooftop deck offering 360-degree views tops the newly built home offering expansive views of Downtown LA as well as the Santa Monica Mountains. Taken altogether, this California beach house demonstrates how the cleanest lines and understated detailing can create the most profound impact.
