Modern Resources

In the summer of 1946, Richard Neutra was recommended to a young dentist, and correspondence between the 30-year-old dentist and the 54-year-old architect began late that year. Stuart Bailey bought his lot in the Pacific Palisades directly from John Entenza, impresario and publisher of Arts and Architecture, who had purchased five acres on a beautiful coastal bluff to create a small colony of Case Study House homes.

Stuart wasted no time. He had the land surveyed the day after Christmas 1946, and schematic drawings for the two-bedroom, 1,320 square foot house were signed Jan. 15, 1947, drawn by Benno Fischer. (Fischer was an unlikely Polish survivor of the Holocaust, scarcely 80 lbs. when he was rescued by the Americans. Fischer became one of Neutra’s key project architects.

Neutra and team produced working drawings by February 1947; and the bid rose from $19,600 to $22, 859.00. In plan, the house embodies a Neutra concept called the “Four-Courter House,” in which arms of the house define different spatial quadrants, in a pin wheel each quadrant could be employed differently (entry, private master suite, children’s play area, laundry/yardwork.) He argued that if a house had a pinwheel plan, he could double “the square-foot hours of living” through these separate outdoor areas. The compact pinwheel (1,320 s.f. at $14.85/s.f.) began as two offset redwood, white stucco and brick rectangles. To accommodate the children that Bailey anticipated, Neutra designed a freestanding two-bedroom unit connected by a walkway in 1950. Others followed in ‘58 and ‘62, adding 1,650 s.f. creating an environment sporting four articulated wings. Because of their short lengths, these wings gather in “local” space in a gesture of domesticity, rather than unfurl boldly into the landscape, as the Kaufmann (built a year earlier) and Tremaine houses (built a year later) do.

Enter Stuart Bailey. Stuart had an agenda, but so did Neutra, on behalf of Bailey’s future. And the character of these two men, their goals and hopes and life histories, emerges from their correspondence with one another. Bailey was pragmatic, gentle, had a wicked, laconic sense of humor, and was intent on building a family (hence the additions) and designing the next half century right. What propelled him was not so much the nobility of Case Study House program so much as all the cost savings proferred by the various manufacturers courting publicity, including discounts on 12’x8’ sliding glass, aluminum-coated steel doors which weighed 1,000 pounds, and most importantly, a prefabricated utility core called the Ingersoll Utility Unit, he told me in 2000  “that still works fine after 51 years” that centrally massed plumbing and heating equipment. It seemed to me, in that one and only interview, that Dr. Bailey always encountered Neutra in a forthright manner, lightly, and with humor.

Neutra and Bailey shared their enthusiasm for the famous Ingersoll Utility Unit was about 22 square feet, 9’ x 2.6 or thereabouts; John Entenza praised the unit in March 1947, announcing that it would be introduced as part of the CSH program at Case Study House #20, the Bailey House (see https://usmodernist.org/AA/AA-1947-03.pdf.) (Neutra protégé Harwell Harwell Hamilton is reputed to be credited as the one of the designers of the unit, which he admired for its promise of alleviating work. The unit came with wiring and plumbing for kitchen appliances, and in some cases the appliances themselves.)

Bailey wrote to Neutra, ” when the lot and your fee are paid i shall be helpless … I assure you i have no hidden source of wealth which could be drawn on in emergency … But while Stuart was pragmatic, he picked his battles. He wanted a variety of woods including plywood paneling of elm and reddish Costa Rican mahogany for the public areas of the house, and chose blond birch, slightly cheaper than maple, for the bedrooms. Bailey was an inquisitive, highly literate man and told Neutra, “I also have also has a 30-pound dictionary that needs a home.”

Dr. Bailey also liked lights, and energy was cheap. As he told Neutra in response to the architect’s standard “client interrogation” of daily life and habits,  “I like cove light, trough light, kleig light, clerestories, lights in closets and cupboards and all manner of decorative lights. Never use a 200-watt bulb where a 300-watt bulb can be squeezed in. You may have no pity on my electric bill.” (Perhaps Stuart’s ardent love of versatile lighting — a love that Neutra demonstrate best in the Tremaine House, on the boards at the same times — is because a dentist needs the very best light to do their very best work.)

Neutra’s beliefs about light went far beyond “lights.” His reasons were anchored in those concerns that propelled Modernism itself, the eradication of the “dark Satanic mills” of the Industrial Age and the way an architect could employ light and ventilation as skillfully as a dentist’s drill in enhancing human well-being. Glass walls played huge role in providing natural light as well as access to the natural world.

For Household Magazine, November 1947, Neutra wrote :

Glass can extend the walls of our house visually. It can make our houses seem larger than the are, can give us more space to wander about. At least the eye is not caught and oppressively restricted by a wall when the wall is of glass …

But is glass used only because it is pleasant … no .. we need the light and openness for our well-being. It is not necessary to bathe, scantily clad, in the direct rays of the sun to receive benefits. Diffused, wholesomely diluted light, played over a long period on your skin, is healthful, vitamin-producing, and life-maintaining. Our eyes, too, are not strained in a well-lighted room, we develop fewer headaches and much less irritability. Yes, that grouchiness might be overcome by a few extra panes of glass in your living room!

[Glass] gives us a sense of the space beyond because of the dappling sunlight and silhouetted shadows of trees and plants.” By enjoying the moving shapes of the shadow patterns and the variation of light and shade you are made aware of the space extension to the outside. Your room feels larger and you feel more freedom.”

[He argued that] translucent glass brightens a room more than a transparent pane. There are many prismatic and ribbed glass surfaces forming ingeniously many small lenses which in a very simple way coax the light to the places where we want it. get light to turn corners and fall into an interior space … we can we can be happier and more contented in a home that does not hold us in too closely … relaxation of our nervous systems … reduce irritation for mother by providing window to oversee children and this can even be one-way so child not psychologically disturbed by being aware of the mother’s watchful eye.

Neutra’s letters to Bailey provide clues to his relationship to his client and to his clients in general:

July 11 1951 Neutra writes to Bailey, “I am very anxious to continue the spur wall to the southwest of your bedroom so that it will project 6″ farther than the roof projection.” [This is so Neutra could achieve his design objective of planes sliding from planes.]

“I am very anxious to extend the finished casing of the lintel beam over your bedroom windows also 6″ farther to the southwest [beyond] the southwest facia of the roof overhang. I am convinced that this will improve the looks very greatly …”

“Could suggest that you paint the southeast wall of your living room in a dark brown color which would not show the smoke marks of fireplaces.“

July 27, 1951. When hearing Bailey wanted a pool, Neutra wrote, “The moment there is a swimming pool, one must also consider the access to the nearest bathroom.”

Sept. 17, 1951. Neutra writes, “The interior putty finish plaster must be finished to a mechaical plane surface without ripples or uneven texture … the final texture should be a glass-smooth steel troweled finish … if this is not done, at certain times of the day when the sun’s rays are parallel to the wall, the poor workmanship will become very obvious.”

With regard to the bathroom, on the shower door “we would suppgest Factrolite glass i a plain metal frame. Please insist on a sample being submitted to you for approval as it is sometimes difficult to get the shower door fabricators to use plain moldings; they seem to insist upon using very ornamental moldings which detract from the appearance of the room.“

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Stuart Bailey to RJN June 13, 1958 “.“.. I feel, Mr. Neutra, that this house does not just sit here passively. I feel I have decided never to leave … Since no one will leave we’ll simply have to make room …  it acts o me in a most beneficial manner. It draws me to it. …i can say it has centripetal force on my whole family

Being that good dentist, Bailey told me the story of asking if the closet interiors could be painted white, to see things better, rather than dark. “Mr. Bailey, “ Neutra said sternly, “The closets must recede. If you paint them white, I will remove my name from the project.” The closets remained dark, Bailey said with a grin.