Arnoldi's Malibu home, painted with light
INNER LIFE
Atop a Malibu cliff, Charles and Katie Arnoldi master the art of the beach house.
TURN off the road, pass through blank-faced gates and the house rises at the end of a drive -- an angular blank canvas silhouetted against the sky. Through an aperture in all that whiteness -- actually a pair of mammoth glass doors, perfectly aligned at the home's front and back -- sun dances on the Pacific, boats bob on the horizon, and Santa Catalina Island comes into focus. Only then does realization strike: You are at land's end.
That is the first surprise at the house of the Arnoldis -- author Katie and artist Charles, who designed it after getting a bit of advice from a friend named Gehry.
"I approached the design as if I were making a sculpture," Charles says. "For me, architecture is the same process as making art. You create a problem for yourself that you have to solve. I'm visually oriented. The shape and scale of the house and of the rooms reflect my point of view. They're big, bold and straightforward."
From the gate, there's just that one peekaboo view that allows guests to see through the house to the great beyond. But inside, every room has a glass wall facing the water.
The living room, 35 feet wide by 40 feet long, has an immense hearth and those sliding glass doors, 25 feet wide -- large enough for a dump truck to drive through, as one did recently to unload gravel into the redesigned oceanfront garden.
Even with its 20-foot ceiling and concrete floor, the room feels cozy, the combined effect of the seductively plump red leather sofa and chairs that Charles designed and the paintings that animate both walls.
Round end tables, reminiscent of antiques, are actually contemporary steel creations of Charles'. The artist designed almost every piece of furniture in the house, he says, with the exception of a Noguchi coffee table in the living room and the bentwood Thonet chairs around the Arnoldi-designed aluminum dining table, which has a small Calder sculpture in its center. Arnold Schwarzenegger liked the table so much that he commissioned one for himself, Charles says.
A large leaping fish made of milky glass scales sits on a pedestal. Is it a sculpture? No, it's a lamp by Frank Gehry. The bulbs are concealed inside.
Gehry's drawings and sculptures are all over the house, along with art by the Arnoldis' daughter, Natalie. The high school senior's works keep company with those of Sam Francis, Robert Graham, Richard Diebenkorn, Jasper Johns and Francesco Clemente, to name a few.
