MCH: Hi Alex, you are lucky enough to live in a A. Quincy Jones house. Tell us a bit more about yourself and how you came to live in this house.

ALEX: My passion for Architecture started young as a Lego Maniac. I’m from St. Louis and grew up near a Frank Llyod Wright house that was designed around the same time period. Note the similarities. I found this beautiful neighbourhood researching “affordable” places to live in Los Angeles on the Westside. A realtor told me about a strict neighbourhood of post and beams that no one wanted, I was sold!

I didn’t end up hiring her, though. It took me about eight years before the right one popped up and I won in a bidding war with the lowest bid against developers screaming at the original owner’s children for “soil reports” intent on demolition.

I did a lot of research leading up to the purchase and discovered John Lautner was originally involved and due to an affair with his boss (Douglas Honnold: Also Jones’ boss) at the time A. Quincy Jones picked up the pieces.

The real credit goes to a virtually unknown architect called James Charlton, who was one of Frank Llyod Wright’s Apprentices. Knowing the Frank Lloyd Wright roots of a few of the founders of the Crestwood Hills, Jones choose Charlton to do the redesigns, after what I assume were Lautner’s were deemed too modern. Charlton also was training under Lautner, when Lautner supervised the George Sturges House which is located at the base of my neighbourhood.

Charlton is a real character and has a beautiful archive at UC Santa Barbara with original drawings of how he envisioned the Crestwood Hills.