For the Highest Green Honor, One Couple Pulls Out All the Stops

A respected Los Angeles contractor for more than 30 years, Mehran Taslimi knows all the major architects in the city. But when he and his wife, Laila, set out to redesign their Tudor Revival house in Santa Monica, they were drawn to the sensibility of an underdog—Fleetwood Fernandez Architects, the small, local husband-and-wife design firm of Hunter Fleetwood and Paz Fernandez. "I thought I’d get their attention," Taslimi says. "And I did."