This four bed, two and a half bath, $1.98 million house at 143 Calvert Court in Piedmont has 76 windows spread throughout its 2,200 square feet, most of them of the floor to ceiling variety.
This means that you can look through almost as much of the exterior as you can look at, and also that any tenant will have to keep stone throwing habits to a minimum.
This largely transparent 1965 house is the work of modernist Long Beach architect Edward Killingsworth, and is supposedly the only house he designed outside of Southern California. In addition to his larger projects, Killingsworth was most famous for his Case Study Houses, experimental homes commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine.
The Spalding House, as this one has been dubbed, isn’t a Case Study House, although it’s a dead ringer for some of them, with Killingsworth’s signature style of overlapping box shapes and, yes, lots and lots of glass.
It last sold in 2011 for $1.2 million (although one might have stayed there to the tune of $1,490 a night through the wonders of Airbnb).
The interior features a few other Killingsworth touches, like the floating staircase, and the omnipresent built-in cabinets that he just couldn‘t seem to get enough of (they grace his Case Study homes as well), including a "hidden" wet bar.
A few later additions have been made, including solar panels on the roof and, with a mind toward the drought, a bit of artificial lawn. The grounds include a waterfall and reflecting pool, so it’s not a bad idea to cut back on water consumption elsewhere. Notice the grid layout of the concrete slabs in the backyard. There’s also a grove of twisting, mysterious looking live oaks surrounding the property.
- 143 Calvert Court
- Killingsworth, Brady, & Smith [LA Conservancy]
- Case Study Houses [Arts & Architecture]
- Midcentury Gem [Airbnb]
- Killingsworth to Die For [Curbed SF]