Ray Kappe

Made to the drive to see my first Ray Kappe design, though this is not — from what I can gather — a typical Kappe. No wood here except as accents; this one’s all concrete and steel and glass in a masterful interplay. Was the client a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Los Angeles concrete block fortresses? Those are my favorite Wrights, though here Wright’s patternwork has been replaced with off-the-shelf block. Which — combined with the lack of furniture in the house — induces a slight sense of abandoned prison. Combine that with the turret (pictured below), and you start to get a sense of why this house didn’t sell a few years ago when it went on the market.