One of the great homes that John Lautner designed in the ‘40s, the Schaffer house blends into its wooded surroundings as if it had always been there.

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 19, 2016

John Lautner’s 1949 home for J.W. Schaffer is a building you discover. Nestled in the foothills of the Verdugos, in the Whiting Woods neighborhood just south of Montrose, the house is enveloped by oak trees and sunken below street level. It has the feeling of a secluded place to enjoy nature – almost camouflaged really. Bands of redwood slats and siding meld into the wooded landscape, their deep reddish color echoed by small expanses of brick walls. The Schaffer house looks like a hidden lodge you might stumble upon in the middle of a forest after a day’s backpacking expedition. Like what a Gold Rush-era pioneer would build if he were somehow acquainted with high-end architectural trends of a century later. 

The Schaffer family owned this land for years before the house was built, and they used to take picnics underneath the expansive tree cover. Lautner’s design thoughtfully acknowledges that pastime, by orienting much of the house toward the outside. Over the dining room table, a glass wall is angled upward, directing the eye up to the leafy canopy; wide glass doors open on central pivots on the back patio, merging in and out as if there were no difference between them.

In his design for the Schaffer house, Lautner encoded many of the principles of Organic architecture that he soaked up during his Taliesin Fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright in the ‘30s. There’s a lot of Wright in the design, from its horizontality and built-in desk to the use of (comparatively) inexpensive materials to the orientation of the house away from the street. Lautner had radiant heating under the concrete floor as part of his original plan, a common feature of Wright’s Usonian houses. But this is not a straight homage. There are also plenty of quirks that are quintessentially Lautner, from the multi-tiered, angled roofs and the visual interplay of the wood beams, redwood panels and slatted security fences.

+See interior photos by Joe Fletcher at Remodelista

This home will be a minor revelation if you mostly know Lautner from the modernist sky palaces he built in the late ‘50s and ‘60s. His best known works project out of hillsides and balance precariously on pedestals, create cliffsides out of concrete and command spectacular mountainside views (see my visit #67 to the Harpel House). They are rooted in their environment, but they also demand attention. 

In comparison, the Schaffer house is an intricate, intimate building – and you can actually get a great view of it from the street! Which is more than I can say for the rest of the Lautners I’ve encountered in Los Angeles. If you want an even better view, watch the 2009 film A Single Man, which was partially shot inside the Schaffer house

PS: Another sterling example of a small Lautner home in a wooded setting is the Tyler House in Studio City, built just a few years after the Schaffer. It’s not on the National Register of Historic Places, but it’s pretty wonderful. Here are some professional shots from Dwell, and here are a couple photos I snapped myself: 

…and then there’s the Pearlman Cabin in Idyllwild, which is actually a log cabin.

Recommended Reading/Viewing

+NRHP multiple property nomination form for Residential Architecture of John Lautner in Southern California (1940-1994) (pdf)

+A Star Is Reborn: An Iconic Midcentury House in LA Renovated by Park McDonald (Remodernista, 2019) – includes some incredible pictures of the interior

+Touring John Lautner’s Incredible Schaffer House and Talking About Why It Isn’t Selling (Curbed, 2012)

+Schaffer House by John Lautner. Complete overview and walkthrough (John Lautner Architecture Videos on YouTube)

+Growing and Living: John Lautner and the Legacy of Organic Architecture (franklloydwright.org, 2021)