This 1948 modernist masterpiece merges outdoor and indoor space with an exterior wall that swings out at the flip of a switch and a pool that extends underneath a glass wall into the inside of the house

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

If someone were to tell you about a house that has an exterior wall with a built-in couch that swings out at the flip of a switch via hydraulics, and also an apostrophe-shaped pool that is both outside AND inside the house, all you will think about is that swing-out wall, and the indoor-outdoor pool. But there’s so much more to this 1948 house for Foster Carling, designed by mid-century master John Lautner. So we’re not gonna talk about the wall/pool stuff until the end of this post. 

The Foster Carling residence sits high up on a ridge in the Hollywood Hills, a bit north of Mulholland Drive. It’s on the easternmost part of the hill, right where Mulholland starts dropping back down toward the Cahuenga Pass. So as you can imagine the views are pretty majestic. Its current owner, fashion designer Jeremy Scott, told Vogue in 2016 that he could watch 4th of July fireworks from the LA basin from one side of his house, and in the San Fernando Valley from the other. Oh and, Jeremy Scott owns Lautner’s Elrod House in Palm Springs. (I’m expecting my invitation any day now, Mr. Scott. Either home will do.)

Carling was a composer for film and TV, best known for his lyrics to this silly Spike Jones adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite”, plus a lot of songs from western movies. His big request of Lautner was an open plan with plenty of room for his grand piano, and for his frequent get-togethers with friends and collaborators. Lautner more than obliged, by giving Carling a home without any interior columns. The prefab hexagonal roof over the main space is supported by cantilevered steel beams, attached to three tripods on the house’s exterior. Just imagine how Carling’s rolling chords would resonate in that main room, bouncing off the polished concrete floors, unimpeded by walls or columns! Lautner hung a wood triangle from the ceiling to help with the acoustics, too. 

In the context of Lautner’s long architectural career, the Carling house was an important early commission for a few reasons. It was the first time that he worked with John de la Vaux, a former shipbuilder who designed boats for Errol Flynn and the US Navy before collaborating with Lautner on some of his most iconic homes, including the Harvey residence (also on the NRHP), the Chemosphere, Harpel House #1 (see visit #67) and Harpel #2 in Anchorage Alaska, and part of Silvertop. 

The Carling was also an early example of Lautner’s use of prefab elements, like the hexagonal roof designed by structural engineer Edgardo Contini. Lautner ended up using Contini’s roofs for two other homes completed in 1948, the Jacobsen and Polin houses. 

This house is perhaps the clearest early example in Lautner’s oeuvre of his belief in his nigh-spiritual practice of merging inside and outside until there’s no difference between the two. The floor-to-ceiling glass on the south side of the home invites in the sweeping views (as long as the windows have been cleaned recently). But Lautner took that merging of in and out to a literal extreme at the Carling, with a pool that flows from the terrace to the living room underneath a retractable glass wall, and the famous hydraulic swing-out wall, which obliterates the in/out dichotomy entirely. A few sources connect that hydraulic wall to the Hawaiian concept of a “hikea,” or a “platform of gatherings.”

You can read these technological innovations as expressions of a design philosophy, which they totally were. I also like to think of them as Lautner flexes – the flashy details dreamed up by a visionary artist that he knew would delight his client and raise the bar for private modern architecture. Gotta imagine that Lautner smiled when he first saw Mr. Carling’s reaction to that wall swinging out toward the vast expanse of the Cahuenga Pass.

As with many of his houses, Lautner returned to the Carling house over the years to make alterations or additions. Early on, he added hydraulics to the hikea wall so it could open mechanically. Then in 1991 he returned to the home to convert the carport into another bedroom. A home this spectacular is meant for sharing!

PS: My research on the Foster Carling house dug up a cool Lautner/Coen Brothers connection. Carling once wrote alternate lyrics to the Tex Ritter version of “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” one of the first songs we hear in the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? Of course Lautner’s famous Sheats-Goldstein residence is used as Jackie Treehorn’s home in Big Lebowski. Coincidence? I think so…

Recommended Reading: 

+Carling House (LA Conservancy)

+Great photos of the house at Modern Living

+Some great drone footage with awful music (ModernLivingLA on YouTube)

+Beyond Flash and Fantasy (Eichler Network)

+Lautner Still Ahead of His Time (LA Times, 1986)

+John De la vaux: One in a Million (John Lautner Foundation, 2019)