A LEAP OF FAITH

TRUST IS THE THEME FOR A CLIENT'S NEW HOME ON THE OCEAN IN NEWPORT BEACH-AND FOR ITS ARCHITECT.

- J. MICHAEL WELTON

The architect pulled out a book of Ibiza houses by Rolph Blakstad, its pages tweaked and earmarked.

It wasn’t Greece, but it was Mediterranean. Besides, this architect could intuit what the client wanted with ease.

To hire him meant a leap of faith. And she thought: “Why not?” After all, a friend had said, “If you hire anyone, hire Bob White, and whatever he does, just let him do it.”

So she and her husband made that leap. Her husband was on board because White projected the epitome of California cool. And she liked him because he reminded her of a surfer. “He’s a laid-back dude with long hair, super-nice and soft-spoken,” she says.

Their children were grown, graduated from college and living in New York. So the couple was ready for a Newport Beach house, not the 6,500-square-foot home they’d lived in for years in Corona del Mar.

“We said: ‘Let’s go somewhere smaller, and travel,’” she says. “And there was this lot available—on one stretch of beach seven blocks long with no traffic.”

So they bought it. Sure, its existing, worn-out duplex had to come down. And, yes, there was the neighbor just six feet to the east. But there was also a wide-open street on the west, with the opportunity for plenty of natural, southwestern light. Best of all, just steps away lay the sand and surf of the Pacific Ocean.