To Brigit Hamanaka, it's a fairly standard bathroom except for one thing. "It's all windows on that side," she says.
That side is an exterior wall completely composed of transparent glass. In a house high on a seaside ridge of Pacific Palisades, the view is not only of the Pacific Ocean but also of El Medio bluffs across the arroyo. Hamanaka has visited neighbors to see what they see, and has come away unconcerned about peeping Toms.
"I just turn it on, steam up the shower and get in," she says. "I figure if people have nothing better to do, then that's their problem. It doesn't bother us." She has thought about putting up curtains, but they would only clutter the view. "It's awfully nice to be taking a shower and looking out over the ocean."
Think of it as one more reason to watch your diet and work on those abs. The bathroom, the home's last bastion of privacy, is going public.
As Southern Californians maximize views, embrace indoor-outdoor living and celebrate open-plan design, glass-walled bathrooms are burgeoning. If the kitchen has morphed into the new family room, and the living room has moved into the garden, then the bathroom is becoming the new picture window -- gateway to the world outside.
"Privacy isn't quite what it once was," says Ric Abramson, architect of Hamanaka's house. "We're much more progressive today in our sensibilities about privacy and openness. Things that were formerly taboo are now spoken of, and that shows up in our division of space."
Malibu architect Ed Niles says natural light and a connection to the outdoors is essential, especially in the bathroom. Ninety percent of the bathrooms he designs face east for the early morning sun.
"The bathroom is the first space you go to when you wake up, and it's very important for that reason alone," he says. "It sets an attitude, a sense of what the day is. Is it raining, or are the birds out and the sun is shining?"
In some cases, glass bathrooms don't look to the outside. Transparent walls and doors open to the bedroom, erasing traditional barriers between spaces.
"I've remodeled houses in the Colony where the bedroom is here and the toilet is right there in the room -- exposed," Niles says.
Renee and Meyer Luskin considered remodeling a home on a peak overlooking Mandeville Canyon but then followed Niles' suggestion for something new and unique: a glass-and-steel structure of swooping curves and clean lines. Every room in the home was to be transparent except for a walk-in closet.
