Casa Study House #1

When Jeremy and Robin Levine remodeled their house in the Eagle Rock district of Los Angeles, they chose to keep it at the scale, if not the style, of other houses in the neighborhood. They expanded it back and front by building shady decks around existing trees. The sliding, slatted doors of triple-panel wood reinforce the inside-outside living experience.

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Architect, builder, and developer Jeremy Levine stands at the threshold of the front deck and the living room under his newly raised ceiling made of wood recycled from the original pitched roof.

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The house features thick walls with deep shelves carved into them, intended to save space and convey the solidity of Spanish-style houses.

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The layering of the remodeled house is revealed in this image of Robin and Jeremy relaxing on the front deck.

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A young, drought-tolerant Tristania conferta (also known as Australian brush box tree) grows up through the chill-out room under the deck at the rear of the house.

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The entrance to the chill-out room is under the stairs.

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One of Levine’s design experiments is this “thermal rock wall” of loosely stacked stones.

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A Robinia tree moved from another part of the site grows in this pocket courtyard and thermal chimney in the heart of the house.

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A preoccupation for Levine was saving space and money; he and his team used threaded steel rods and birch veneer plywood to construct the shelving in his office at the rear of the house.

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The front bedroom reveals how the design creates through-flow of light and air in what had previously been a poky set of spaces.

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