BARBARA BESTOR'S office is hiding. Camouflaged in ever-changing murals on a gritty stretch of Fountain Avenue in Silver Lake, the building has only one formal sign, and it reads "Hair" -- a leftover from the beauty salon that used to occupy the site.
It's not what one might expect of an emerging architect in arguably the city's hippest neighborhood, but that's Bestor: as hard to define as L.A.'s evolving Eastside. Schooled in Modernism at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, later hired by the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers, and now relied upon by two young daughters, Bestor manages to fuse street culture with high design, building homes that are full of bohemian chic yet conscious of the realities of everyday living. At 39, she is among a new generation of architects redefining not only what this part of Los Angeles will look like for decades to come, but also how its residents will live.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday April 11, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Eastside architecture: An article in the April 6 Home section about architect Barbara Bestor said Mark Brown was an actor, and partner Bob Cesario was a TV writer and producer. Brown is the writer and producer, and Cesario is the actor.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday April 13, 2006 Home Edition Home Part F Page 7 Features Desk 1 inches; 39 words Type of Material: Correction
Eastside architecture -- An April 6 article in the Home section about architect Barbara Bestor incorrectly said Mark Brown is an actor and partner Bob Cesario is a TV writer-producer. Brown is the writer-producer, and Cesario is the actor.
During the next two years, half a dozen of her houses will be completed in Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park and Mount Washington, raising her presence in areas best known for midcentury classics by R.M. Schindler, Richard Neutra and Gregory Ain. Though inspired by those architects' groundbreaking work, her mission lies not in channeling their aesthetic but in advancing it, her way, which may mean using army-surplus arctic netting as a room divider or "repurposing" a baseball backstop as the wall of an outdoor dining room.
"I really like all the ugly stuff about L.A. I like that my office is on a street with a bunch of auto mechanics. I like that stuff almost as much as I like the How House," Bestor says, citing a Schindler on Silver Ridge Avenue.
Other designers, of course, also balance the functional with the funky. But as architect and UCLA adjunct associate professor Roger Sherman points out, Bestor has a clarity of vision, a populist spirit that sets her apart.
"Right now, the state of architecture we have is a kind of digital craze, where it's all about what you can do with the computer and generate these outrageous and complex and evocative forms, which are almost impossible to construct," Sherman says. "She's really interested in bridging the gap between high and low culture."
ERIC SCHMIDT knew that he wanted to buy the Mount Washington house after six steps. That's how long it took him to walk from the glass entryway into the living room, where he glimpsed the city skyline through the cutout window of a built-in bookcase.
