Barbara Bestor isn’t accustomed to clients looking to renovate without adding on, even if it’s converting a garage into living space. But David Weinberg and Gary Ventimiglia aren’t most clients. They’d actually downsized from a sprawling penthouse apartment in Los Angeles’s famed El Royale when they found a 1,600-square-foot, 1926 Tudor in Silver Lake.

The three-bedroom, two-bath home was compact and choppy, but it came with a big benefit: a view of the reservoir. The question was how to reimagine and modernize the interior for two people who love to entertain.

David, who works in the music business, had Bestor in mind from the start. They’d met through Luke Wood, for whom she restored and updated John Lautner’s Silvertop. Though the architect readily admits that “Tudor is not my thing,” she was intrigued by the chance to do something “cool and unexpected” with the place.

“It was like a New York City project, because it was essentially a gut renovation of every single thing in a pretty small house,” she says. “We added very little, which isn’t normally what people do in L.A. I kept asking them, ‘Are you sure?’”

David and Gary were sure, but their vision for a modest redo was turned on its head when on her first walk-through, Bestor immediately suggested knocking down walls to improve circulation and connect the interior to the backyard. Says Gary, a literary manager and producer, “When she started getting very Barbara-like and creative, we saw something we hadn’t seen, and it was inspiring.” They gave her the go-ahead.

The front facade makes it clear that Bestor hasn’t abandoned the home’s English country leanings altogether—she’s simply added her own spin. The steep gables are painted a matte black, in contrast with the creamy white of the adjacent walls. “The house accepts its Tudor character, but at the same time it abstracts its Tudorness,” she says. For his part, David remembers feeling hesitant when Bestor first presented her proposal for the exterior colors. “But then she said, ‘Think of a Motherwell painting,’ and that reduced my anxiety.”

Step inside, and the architect’s vision is even more apparent. Working with Bestor Architects senior associate Henry Cheung and contractor Dave King of DTK Builders, she opened up the house’s south side so that the living room, dining room, and kitchen all occupy a continuous, streamlined sweep from front to back (a move helped by borrowing about 100 square feet from what had been a small side porch).

The new office beside the dining room serves as a bridge to the private wing. Whether public or private, the spaces are all linked by a clean material palette: There are oak floors throughout, while rift-sawn white-oak cabinets, marble counters, and a black soapstone island bring balance to the kitchen.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves now surround the fireplace in the living room. Painted a smoky green, they’re at once fresh and modern while totally in keeping with the gables just outside. “The house is not that big, so we tried to maximize the spatial, atmospheric quality with color that draws your eye up,” says Cheung, who also assumed interior design duties for the project. “It gives the room character and personality, and that gets distributed throughout the house.”

Indeed, green shows up again in the kitchen, where a built-in banquette beside the coffee bar is a favorite stop for guests, as well as in the guest bathroom.

With space at a premium, a major challenge was how to fit a new primary bathroom into the plan. “We didn’t have a lot of floor space, so to compensate, we gave it a crazy tall ceiling,” Bestor says. Notes Cheung, “The bathroom is maybe six by ten feet, but it has a cathedral vaulted ceiling with a pair of skylights that bring in filtered light.”

Having bid farewell to penthouse life, Gary and David have now put down roots of a different kind. Glimpses of blue water sparkle through the trees, and with the doors open to the patio, the house feels bright and airy. At parties, friends congregate around the kitchen island or gather around the firepit, while others lounge in the TV room.

The couple credits Bestor for delivering their dream home. “Sometimes I see these old houses and I think they’re perfect just the way they are, but Barbara had a vision,” says David. Gary agrees. “From the moment David said, ‘This is it,’ it’s been our home. We’re so happy here.”

More projects by Bestor Architecture:

An Eccentric Pop of Blue Accents an Introspective Home in Los Angeles

Midcentury Meets Aloha at This Revamped Ranch-Style Home in Pasadena

Project Credits:

Architect and Interior Designer: Barbara Bestor, with senior associate Henry Cheung, Bestor Architecture / @bestorarchitecture

Landscape design: Bestor Architecture, and Terremoto / @terremoto_landscape

Builder/General Contractor: DTK Builders, Inc.

Structural Engineer: Craig Phillips Engineering and Design

Cabinetry: ROWLA Studios / @joseph_rowla_studios

Photographer: Yoshihiro Makino / @yoshihiromakino

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A Silver Lake Tudor’s Gut Renovation Shows That Bigger Isn’t Always Better