Great Room

Don't let the dance pole and two-story bar fool you. Although most of the Hollywood Hills homes designed by Angie Thornbury have been sold to bachelors, there's something for everyone in this house above the Sunset Strip. Thornbury began renovating what was then a 2,400-square-foot ranch house three years ago, transforming the former tract home in the prestigious "bird streets" area of the Hollywood Hills into a trendy, modern space nearly three times its original size. She designed the house around the views that span from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean and San Nicolas Island.

Q: My new house has a long, rectangular living room that measures 11 x 18; it has a high window on the long wall and an entrance on the short wall. Where do I put my furniture? I have a 7-foot-long sofa, along with a rocking chair and an armchair. Though I have no tables, I plan to buy some soon. I hate rectangular rooms. Please help! Barbara Wilson A: I hate to tell you, but you'll have to live with your rectangular room.

As any cat lover knows, our feline friends have refined tastes. So it is telling to note that Wheels, a long-haired black cat, has two favorite spots in Sally Mosher's Pasadena home. One prime bird-watching post is on a table in the "great room," which Mosher added onto her house nine years ago. And Wheels' other--and now most favored--station is in the sun room, which Mosher added to her home late last year. Mosher shares her kitty's preference for the airy sun room.

This two-story contemporary with a minimalist design stands out from the older single-family homes along Irvine Avenue on the eastern edge of Costa Mesa. Instead of one massive piece of poured-in concrete in the driveway, stripes of sod break up 4-by-5-foot pads of black concrete leading to the teak front gate and aluminum-framed, frosted-glass garage door. The black concrete pattern continues inside the gate, passing underneath the master suite's balcony and leading to a simple, thin-framed, glass front door.

A circular great room with a sweeping view of the western San Fernando Valley is the focal point of John Lautner's Hatherall House, which combines mid-century progressive engineering with a Space Age flair for the dramatic. Built in 1958, the home in Shadow Hills was designed for George Hatherall, a retired research chemist who wanted a residence that opened to the outdoors while maintaining his privacy.

A soaring 150-year-old giant sequoia stands sentinel in the courtyard of a contemporary Pasadena home with an urban castle motif. The house, built in 2007 by architectural designer Van-Martin Rowe as his residence, is surrounded by 15-foot-high hedges and features a rooftop garden with rows of Italian cypress trees and succulent-filled planters. "Somebody had to have loved that giant sequoia tree because it belongs up north," says Rowe, who also had a signature line of men's and women's sportswear in the 1970s and 1980s.

Upland Fire Chief John Scanlon and his wife, California Computer Schools CEO Gail Horton, spent a dozen years building their American dream in Upland.Now that they're finished, they've decided to sell and start over. The couple want to downsize and already has started working on drawings for their retirement home. About this house: Finding a large handcrafted Norman Tudor with the amenities of a newer mansion is rare in Upland.

Claire Stansfield isn't a woman who commits to one style. When she co-founded her high-end T-shirt company, C&C California, the idea was to create "a classic shirt that women could wear with Jimmy Choos or flip flops, depending on their mood." So when Stansfield bought a traditional English country-style house in the Oaks neighborhood of the Hollywood Hills, she wanted that same flexibility, an environment where she could display her mother's fancy Limoges china one day, earthy Heath pottery the next — depending on her mood.

Modeled after a Tuscan hillside villa, this new custom home in Manhattan Beach features an Old World exterior with a stylish modern interior of more than 8,500 square feet. A two-story brick portico and stone entry lead to a large courtyard, which allows natural light into the entire home. The circular front hallway has mosaic floors. It leads to several areas, one of which is the recreation room with a mosaic bar, ice maker, wine cooler and flat-screen television. Four to 40 guests can easily flow through the space, which has 11-foot ceilings and walnut floors.

Rain, mud, wildfires and landslides are as predictable in Laguna Beach as the annual influx of summer tourists. None of those issues, however, has dissuaded eager buyers from getting a piece of the good life in the Orange County artists' colony over the decades. That's because the pocket beaches, hot surf spots, laid-back attitude and leafy properties with drop-dead views are too great a lure, residents say. Newport Beach architect Brion Jeannette capitalized on the unfettered views of downtown Laguna, the ocean and Santa Catalina Island from this property's hilltop perch by creating a modern, four-level steel-and-glass house with a terrace off of every room.