Content area
Full Text
Michael LaFetra remembers the first time he heard from architect Pierre Koenig. It was late 1999, and LaFetra was just moving into Case Study House #21, a glass and steel Modernist classic perched high in the Hollywood Hills. He had hardly unpacked a box, much less sent out change-of-address cards for friends or family. But Koenig, somehow, found him.
"Within the first week of owning the house, I had a message on my machine: 'Hello, this is Pierre, your architect, and I want to talk,' " LaFetra recalls. "I thought, whoa -- my parents don't even have my number yet!"
Koenig introduced himself and told LaFetra that "I ought not have to change anything in the house, but that if I needed to, I should get in touch with him," LaFetra says.
It was a call that Koenig made to anyone who bought one of the close to 50 houses he designed. A leading proponent of midcentury Modernism in Los Angeles, Koenig was best known for designing two houses for the legendary Case Study Program, which between 1945 and 1966 commissioned prominent Modern architects to build beautiful -- and affordable -- model homes, most in and around Los Angeles. Koenig's Case Study House #22, photographed by Julius Shulman, is widely considered the iconic postwar L.A. home, with its sweeping city views and openness to the outdoors.
Koenig reached out to the people who bought his homes because he was anxious to preserve the integrity of his clean, spare designs. He didn't want people tinkering with his work. But with his call to LaFetra that day, Koenig, who died of leukemia in 2004 at 78, was helping ensure the survival of his houses -- and his reputation for Modern architecture -- in ways he couldn't have imagined.
Not only did LaFetra, a 38-year-old actor and movie producer, not muck up Case Study House #21, he wound up endorsing successful efforts to get the house registered as a Los Angeles Historic- Cultural Monument along with the more famous Case Study House #22. He went on to commission what would be the last house Koenig designed: a 4,000-square-foot glass box set on a breathtaking Malibu beach. LaFetra is also putting together a documentary about Koenig's life and...