The Mystery of L.A.’s “Lost Neutra” House

When architects Erik Amir and Dora Chi bought a house perched high on a ridge in L.A.’s Sherman Oaks neighborhood, they inherited not just a collection of plans by the great modernist Richard Neutra, but something of a conundrum. A devastating roof leak in 2019 had left the structure a shell of its former self by the time the couple first visited the property two years later. But there was no question in their minds: They wanted it.

"It was in horrible condition, but the moment I stepped through the entry, I was like, ‘Hallelujah,’" says Erik. The interior walls had been stripped down to the studs, and the floors were mostly rough concrete, but glass walls at the rear of the house opened to a stunning vista of the San Fernando Valley and the mountains beyond.

Something else caught their attention: Laid out on a table was an early color sketch that Neutra had made for the site, along with rolls of floor plans and revisions bearing his stamp.

Those plans would become a touchstone for Erik and Dora, the husband-and-wife founders of the architecture firm Spatial Practice, as they spent a little over a year renovating the place to be a home for themselves and their two young sons. Having lived and worked in Asia for 15 years, the pair had recently relocated to Southern California, where Dora has family. "We’d been renting, and we were looking for a fixer-upper," she says with a laugh.

The house, which sits on just over half an acre, was that and then some. And although the plans and some of the sketches appeared to be authentic, there was no mention of the home in Neutra’s official catalog of works, and architectural historian and Neutra expert Barbara Lamprecht notes that some features—such as the beam sequence on the rear facade—weren’t characteristic of the architect’s work.

To try to uncover the home’s backstory, Dwell  contacted one of the daughters of the original homeowner—the late TV writer Stephen Lord—and also reviewed correspondence, memos, and drawings located in the Richard and Dion Neutra Papers collection at UCLA. A search with the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety revealed permits for subsequent additions, but not the original building permit. 

Stephen, who found success in Hollywood with the shows Johnny Ringo, Death Valley Days, and Fantasy Island, was a bachelor when he contacted Neutra about designing a two-bedroom house in 1960. That same year, he purchased a flat lot just east of the newly constructed San Diego Freeway with sweeping views to the west, north, and east.

As Neutra’s plan evolved to suit Stephen’s specifications—for everything from the fireplace at the center of the open-plan living/dining room to the decorative concrete block screen in his bedroom—tensions flared around costs, according to correspondence and memos in the UCLA archive.

"My dad was a hot Sicilian-Irishman and a very proud man," says Jennifer Lord Pihlquist, Stephen’s middle daughter. "He was very particular in his tastes and extremely headstrong."

A larger-than-life figure himself, Neutra ultimately may have decided to cut his losses, and in the spring of 1961, he directed his secretary to send a letter to Stephen terminating their agreement. As a goodwill gesture, Neutra offered to pass along the plans and revisions so that Stephen could, as a draft of a letter in the UCLA collection states, "proceed with the completion of the planning and construction of the building in accordance with [his] wishes."

Stephen built the home circa 1962 without Neutra, and by the time Erik and Dora took ownership, the house had already been expanded several times as Stephen married and had three daughters. He turned the carport into a bedroom and added a bathroom, a standalone office, and a pool.

Jennifer says her father took pride in the decorative details he’d introduced over the years and recalls that when she and her sisters were growing up, architecture students would occasionally come to the house asking if it was by Neutra. "My dad would always turn them away," she says.

As Erik and Dora took stock of what needed to be done to make the place habitable, their first task was to order new windows to replace all but one of the originals—48 in all. "In addition to energy-efficiency, safety was also a reason to switch to tempered glazing with small children," says Dora. "The window next to the coffee bar was special because it was a patterned, textured glass. We thought it would be nice to keep something from the original—and that piece fit nicely, as heat gain or safety was not an issue there."

They also immersed themselves in the Neutra canon—Erik visited the homes that make up the Neutra Colony in Silver Lake and the Chuey House in the Hollywood Hills, and Dora collected images and did additional research. "The first two months or so involved intense preparation—we just wanted to dive into his world," Erik says. "Here, Neutra did the best thing you could do: He oriented the house to face North."

Raymond Neutra, who directs the Neutra Institute for Survival Through Design, says siting was critical in his father’s residential work. "Particularly with the residences, he paid attention to what his clients did, and how they socialized," he says. "He also looked at how the house harmonized with the landscape from the outside as well as the inside, considering where the winds were coming from, where the sun was coming from, and where the views were."

Since the interior was already gutted, the couple had to essentially start from scratch. They put in insulation, redid the electrical, replaced four compromised roof beams, and shored up the foundation on the structure’s northeast corner. On the home’s west side, which had undergone subsequent additions, they turned the newer garage into a carport and redid woodwork and windows to match the original core of the home.

Throughout, new wide-plank, white oak floors reinforce the horizontal lines, although the couple saved the strip of terrazzo that originally extended from the front door to the kitchen. While they carefully retained features such as the open-sided fireplace and the dropped ceilings in the entryway and primary bedroom, Erik and Dora say their goal was not to do a historic restoration but to capture the original intentions of Neutra’s design.

Though the house is still a work in progress, the couple says that living in such thoughtfully designed spaces has been transformative. "As architects, we make environments for people to live in—and as we experience the home every day, we notice and appreciate different things, like the way the sun moves," says Dora. Erik adds, "For us, it’s about living in great architecture and learning from it. The right positions, the right proportions, the right scale...that’s what makes great architecture."

Related Reading:

How Neutra’s Kaufmann House Got its Groove Back

Step Inside Richard Neutra’s VDL House—From the Comfort of Your Computer

The Home That Ignited Richard Neutra’s Architectural Career Is Up for Sale

Project Credits:

Renovation, Interior and Landscape Design: Erik Amir, Dora Chi, Chentian Lu, Spatial Practice / @spatialpractice

Contractor: John Wendel, Hill Structures General Contractors Inc.

Structural Engineer: Aram Arakelyan P.E. & Fabio Zangoli, Labib Funk & Associates / @labibfunk

Cabinetry Design/Installation: Perfect Cabinet