1949 W Micheltorena St, Silver Lake

• $2,099,999
• 3 BD
• 2 BA

A John Lautner house in Silver Lake listed just over $2M? Sounds like a fantasy. Well, the Rosemary and Joseph Baldwin House is now available for purchase. While we don’t expect the selling price to stay that low, it’s still arguably attainable by Los Angeles real estate standards. Lautner gets an A in geometry as far as we’re concerned. Look at the angles, shapes and patterns. His houses are always exceptionally designed. This one is no exception.

First offering in seventy-one years. Circa 1955, designed for commercial artist Joseph Baldwin and his wife, Rosemary, on a tree-filled lot on coveted Micheltorena Street, also home to Lautner’s celebrated Silvertop. An original, intact work from a pivotal moment in his career. Six years a Taliesin Fellow under Frank Lloyd Wright, and you can see it in the siting, the spatial progression, the detail. But the voice is unmistakably Lautner’s own.

A subtle, winding entrance descends to a carport tucked below the house. Arrival as a gradual reveal. Slender posts anchored by shear walls let the house float above the slope, wrapped in brick and redwood plank siding. Inside, skylights wash the foyer in daylight. Terrazzo flows from the entry through the kitchen and out to the art garden. Then the family room, rising beneath a dramatic inverted-pyramid ceiling, triangular clerestory windows echoing its geometry. Floor-to-ceiling glass meets at a mitered corner, opening to the treetops and a wraparound deck suspended over the slope, with views to the Hollywood Hills and the San Gabriel Mountains. Behind the brick fireplace, an artist’s studio bathed in north light, conceived for Baldwin’s work. Every bedroom retains its original built-ins. Structure and furnishings as one.

An authentic piece of Los Angeles architectural history. A stewardship opportunity that may not come again.

Listing courtesy of Louis Magnano, Modern California House