SCREEN GEM

A multifaceted residence in Beverly Hills puts the beauty of potentiality in the frame

- IAN VOLNER

Designing a big house is one thing. But how to design one with big ideas? For architect Robin Donaldson and his client, an investor, that was the question confronting them nearly a decade ago when the pair began discussing what to build on a one-of-a-kind site in Los Angeles. The choicest cut of the city’s most prime real estate, the Trousdale section of Beverly Hills is prized by Hollywood talent and business titans for its eye-popping views stretching clear from downtown to the sea. The area’s architecture is equally distinguished, boasting treasures from masters of modernism such as A Quincy Jones and Paul R Williams. All in all, this one-acre clifftop parcel (later expanded to two acres) demanded something very special.

‘The client wanted a contemporary home, but he didn’t want it to be too cold, too conventionally modern,’ says Donaldson. ‘We wanted to go a step beyond.’ It was the kind of challenge the architect tends to relish: the LA- and Santa Barbara-based Donaldson (then working with longtime partner Russell Shubin; now under his own moniker as Donaldson + Partners) has built a reputation over more than three decades as one of the region’s most daring residential designers.