Originally published by californiahomedesign.com
Author:Philip Ferrato
With almost 6000-square-feet, this 5-bed, 6-bath home (plus a pool and poolhouse) in Pasadena’s Oak Knoll could be described as a party giver’s paradise. Massed in a trio of connected stucco pavilions, the steeply pitched whitewashed spaces are softly illuminated by skylights, ready to be filled with friends. And uniquely, the superb quality of light comes from an industrial product– structural glass– set in the walls and gables.
Developed in the 1930s in Germany and France, structural glass was originally designed to admit light into factories and stairwells, and unlike window glass, it’s translucent (thus inexpensive to produce) and frameless, yet sturdy enough to provide strength of its own in a masonry structure. Rediscovered in the 1980s “High Tech” era, for the past two decades structural glass been prized by architects– such as Lorcan O’Herlihy– in Southern California for its seismic stability, translucence and vertical pattern.
Structural glass is prized for its soft, constantly shifting quality of light and a color best described as pale celadon.
Aligned on an axis, the vast living/dining/kitchen spaces have 22-ft-high ceilings and are flanked by a pair of fireplaces. In the kitchen, a 17-ft-long center island and window frames one of the neighborhood’s ancient oaks.
What We Love: You’re probably going to be only one you know with structural glass walls. Below, the austerely luxurious master bedroom.
In a city of lovely neighborhoods, Oak Knoll is one of Pasadena’s best. Once mostly cattle ranches and dotted with ancient oaks, the area’s early 1900s development was led by railroad fortune heir and magnate Henry E. Huntington. Adjacent to the world-class Huntington Library and its justly famous gardens, as well a few minutes from CalTech, Oak Knoll is also home to a number of architecturally significant Greene and Greene houses plus the classic stucco Mediterranean Revival houses that Pasadena is known for.
