Carolyn Levine, daughter of Nouard Gootgeld

about the construction of a house and store for her father, about life in the house, about John Lautner, January 2001:

Hello fellow Lautner admirers.

I was born in 1948 and raised, from age three, in a Lautner home that was located high on a hill in Beverly Hills, California. I believe our house was John’s first residential project, which is not to say it was any less spectacular than his later work. The time I spent in that home was absolutely amazing, and the magic has stuck with me for the past 48 years, as if infused into my soul. It was similar to residing within a many faceted crystal. John’s creations were not merely buildings. They were wonderful, profound energies, the likes of which I have not seen or experienced anywhere else.

Although the house was placed on a flat lot and built solidly on bedrock, those inside enjoyed an illusion of being suspended in space. There was never a feeling of being “inside,” separated from nature, due to creative use of glass, curves, and angles. A perception of endless dimension was achieved through the incorporation of magnificent landscaping into structural design. The sun & moon, clouds, stars, trees, plants and visual elements of weather telescopically encircled outside through lushly planted heated patios and lawns, eased inside through glass walls, around and through indoor plant life, and continued back out, joining inner and outer space in a full, never-ending circle. Various uses of wood hues and textures, such as deep redwood ceiling beams, further added to the dimensional quality of the interior.

Rooms were separate, yet one’s field of vision was never blocked. Each and every room was graced with a spectacular view of some sort, through floor-to-ceiling windows which seemed to be “not there.” Even with all the glass, we enjoyed total privacy, as the house was secluded within an acre of mature, lush trees and exotic plants, and the lot itself was visually inaccessible from the street above. From the living room looking west, we enjoyed a view of Beverly Hills, Westwood, and the Pacific Ocean (even though we were a good hour of driving time from the beach). There wasn’t much smog in those days. So, on a clear day, we could just make out the impressions of sailboats.

The drama of this room was offset by a cozy fireplace at one end. We enjoyed a panoramic view of Los Angeles, stretching as far as the eye could see, from the kitchen window. The bedrooms were more like quiet, deep velvet, with their adjoining patios and insulating gardens, sometimes framed with slight hints of city twinkle. Each bathroom was a different color, with fixtures and tile to match, and windows, windows, windows! The den, which was John’s favorite room by far, was designed specifically for my father. It was an oddly shaped room with a lovely brick fireplace, lined with square windows placed above eye level. The floor was made of cork, which presented a textural departure from the carpeted adjoining spaces. A 360 degree revolving circular bar was built into one wall, and was completely undetectable to the eye when closed. It was quite spectacular, with its mirrored shelves and walls, housing all my father’s gourmet beverage collectors’ items. (My father owned the first gourmet food, wine, silver, china, crystal, etc., store in the United States, and invented a way of wrapping various items nested into baskets that were covered with cellophane and tied with beautiful bows. John’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth, remembers doing this, as she worked with my father for a short period of time.)

My father died of a sudden heart attack in 1958 and, soon after, we came upon hard times. My mother sold our house to a family with the last name of Cameo. They eventually sold it to someone in the Rothchild family. When they moved out and put the house up for sale, I went and looked at it. Much of the plant life had died off and the interior of the house was a mass of stark white – white marble floors, whitewashed walls, white draperies. A gigantic leaded crystal chandelier hung from the dining room ceiling, and a white bust of Caesar stood on a pedestal in one corner. I cannot imagine why this family went to the trouble of acquiring a Lautner home, as the treatment they chose totally did not translate! A Lautner house must be left “as is” in order to preserve the integrity of the design. For the last twenty years or so, Priscilla Presley has lived where I grew up, albeit in a different house. A few years after moving in, she, unfortunately, razed the structure right down to the steel beams, leaving only the fireplaces and plumbing standing, and built a pseudo- Italian villa in its place.

Regardless of the fact that the work of art that was once our home is no longer standing in physical form, it will exist forever in my mind’s eye, and I go there whenever the mood strikes. For, like all John’s creations, it was an energy first, and a building second. I am not alone in my feelings about this house. Everyone who visited was transported to worlds beyond your garden variety of “life as we know it.”

Recently, I found myself in Barnes & Noble leafing through a gorgeous coffee table edition of John’s work. I was, of course, in “another world,” as is usually the case when I am reviewing Lautner creations. Within 5 minutes, I had a crowd of people looking over my shoulder, in a sort of trance-like stupor. I now reside in Raleigh, North Carolina. People in this part of the country generally have not been exposed to anything even close to John’s designs.

I have a few lucid memories of John, The Man, from my early childhood, as he and his former partner, Doug Honnold, were guys my dad hung out with. John taught me how to draw simple shapes, such as boxes & circles, dimensionally, as opposed to flat. Boy! I was sure able to wow! my first grade classmates with that! I remember tripping around the foundation of our soon-to-be house, as my father and John bantered endlessly about how to combine sound structure with heavenly illusion. It meant nothing to me until after we moved in. Even at that tender age, I was in awe! Lastly, I remember John sitting endlessly in the den, staring out through his first masterpiece, in deep reverie. I often wondered what he was thinking. I know now, he was not thinking. He was traveling!

Last, but not least, my mother, who is now 87-years-old, has begun speaking of John and Doug much more than she used to, which inspired me to type “Lautner” into a search engine on the internet a couple of weeks ago. That put me in touch with John’s daughter, Judith. Judith in turn, put me in touch with John’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth. These two contacts have taken on other-worldly qualities all their own, as our lives have crisscrossed back and forth in very interesting ways. I have learned that Elizabeth actually worked for my father when I was 2-years-old, before John built our house, and before my father had even met John, as Elizabeth’s father, Doug Honnold, was a close friend of my father’s before I was born. Elizabeth’s description of my father is the only one I have been privy to, other than those my mother has offered. It is sort of amazing. I am so glad to have electronically met these two wonderful women.

Hopefully, more Lautner memories will begin to fill this web page. I am waiting in the wings to be one of the first to enjoy them.

Good bye all.

Sincerely, Carolyn Gootgeld-Levine

Elizabeth Honnold-Harris, daughter of Douglas and Elizabeth Honnold

Letter to Mitch Glazer and Kelly Lynch, March 30, 2000, discussing how the Harvey house came to be:

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Glazer,

This will be forwarded by the kind people at “Vanity Fair”, where I saw that superb article about your Lautner house. I am personally delighted that you are its new owners, and from what the article said about your conscientious & caring efforts in its restoration, you have honored John Lautner indeed.

To introduce myself, I am the stepdaughter of John Lautner, the daughter of his second wife Elizabeth. She and John married when I was 14, and between my various schools and colleges, I was a member of their household from age 14 until my marriage in the late 1950’s. Our wedding reception was in the garden described below.

I thought you might like to hear a reminiscence of the true birthday of your house. At the time, John was having what the family termed “a thin time”…i.e., only about half a job on the boards and nothing coming in whatsoever. My mother had a deep and abiding faith in John’s work, and a total confidence that the good angels of architecture would, in time, provide. Her rock-solid faith, along with many pots of stretchable meals & deferred payroll moments with two or three loyal draftsmen (one of whom room/boarded with us to keep it all going) led to the moment described below.

Since John’s drafting room/office was on the same lot as our house on El Cerrito Place in Hollywood, a conversion of a 3-car garage at the end of the driveway, we could sit at the french-windowed dining room and see out over the garden and into the drafting room windows. We were having lunch one day, probably garbanzos with the last bits of ham, and John said that a possible new client was coming to see him at 1:00 o’clock. We all said Ohhhhhhh GREAT, let’s hope-a-hope. As we were finishing lunch, we saw a sturdy business-suited short stocky fellow with his hat on straight and a determined gait come marching down the driveway. John folded his napkin and went down to the drafting room while we kept our fingers crossed. Time passed…mother invoked the Architecture Angel…and after we saw (what turned out to be) Leo J. Harvey march back down the driveway away from the drafting room, we all piled outside and said WHAT HAPPENED. John, with an amazed grin and with an upraised big hand flashed that loveliest of items….The Retainer Check. Further information was that Leo J. had seen one of John’s houses in a publication and had decided that the best was just right for Harvey of Harvey Aluminum. He wanted the best, he wanted a house that nobody else could have or imagine, and he was exacting, picky, firm and totally committed right from the first. He paid the various increments of the fee as they came due without protest or second-guessing, he pored over materials catalogues and took John’s judgements on everything as The Way It Ought To Be. He was, in sum, a Perfect Client.

I hope my very personal reminiscence fleshes out the history of your house…you are indeed worthy successors to Leo J. Harvey, whose ‘clienthood’ broke the thin time days and opened up John’s professional successes for the years that followed. My mother always maintained to her last days that Leo J. Harvey was, in fact, the Architecture Angel…that he should march down the driveway with a checkbook and commitment is, for us, proof positive!

With best regards for continued happiness in the house you care so much about,

Elizabeth Honnold-Harris

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