When it comes to midcentury houses in Southern California, there’s not much that Valerie Levitt Halsey and Brett Halsey haven’t seen. The pair, who run a Los Angeles–based design firm (Levitt Halsey is also a real estate agent), were confident that they knew most of the notable examples. So they were intrigued when John Bhasme and Reshma Shamasunder, who’d come to an open house for a post-and-beam the two had helped remodel in suburban L.A., mentioned that they owned a similar home nearby.

John and Reshma invited the designers to visit the house, which sits on a quiet residential street. Even today, it doesn’t call attention to itself, save for the sharply angled windows on the front facade. But as Halsey and Levitt Halsey stepped into the low-ceilinged entry and around a corner, their jaws dropped. The rear of the home is supported by a soaring open-web truss structure with 13-foot walls of glass that frame views of the Verdugo Mountains. “Valerie and I kept saying, ‘This is by someone,’” says Halsey.

But unearthing that someone’s identity took a bit of legwork.

Searching for building permits, the designers found an application for an expansion done in 1963–64 by a Donald Edwin Pedersen—not a name they recognized from Southern California’s roster of well-known midcentury practitioners. A little more digging revealed that Pedersen had spent the early part of his career with various firms, designing buildings like the futuristic Anaheim Convention Center, before going out on his own in Santa Barbara.

In the family room, a vintage Victor Wilkins coffee table joins a sofa from Article and a rug purchased in Delhi by Reshma’s parents." layout="" credit="Photo by Brad Torchia" photoUserId=""/>

Halsey tracked down Pedersen’s daughter and through her reached out to the architect, who turned out to be the home’s original designer as well. Mostly retired and living in North Carolina, Pedersen, now 87, was delighted to share his memories of the house, which he had lived in as both a teenager and an adult and whose first iteration—two bedrooms, one bath, built in 1949—he had drafted when he was only 13.

“It’s the essence of midcentury design to take an economical approach to making something like the open-truss ceiling striking and beautiful.”
—Brett Halsey, designer

“My father had designed buildings,” he says, by way of explaining his early talent. “After he died, my mother bought the lot, and I sketched the plan and the elevations.” An architect friend of the family did the working drawings. “I couldn’t get a building permit at age thirteen,” Pedersen quips.

Following a tour in the Navy, Pedersen studied architecture at USC and moved back into the house with his wife and their own children. After cutting his professional teeth on public buildings, he considered unconventional strategies to add a bedroom, bathroom, and family room to the home he’d sketched years before. He saw a manufacturer’s brochure advertising a new open-truss system for commercial use and incorporated it into the addition, using plywood routed to look like board and batten on the ceiling above the steel frame.

In addition to upgrading the HVAC and electrical systems, the renovation replaced the home’s dated railings, extended the back wall of the kitchen, and installed walnut cabinetry and floors throughout. The Purist faucet is by Kohler, the refrigerator by GE, and the Onyx recessed lights by Nora Lighting." layout="wide" credit="Photo by Brad Torchia" photoUserId=""/>

“The project was about peeling back layers. From there, we had to be creative and utilize what the house was giving to us.”
—Valerie Levitt Halsey, designer

John and Reshma knew nothing about midcentury design when they bought the house in 2005, although they loved how unique it felt. “The house wasn’t in great condition, but that wall of glass was so beautiful,” Reshma recalls.

They immediately set about remodeling the dated kitchen, and after their third daughter was born they converted the garage into a fourth bedroom. But over time the home’s quirks made them wonder if they should sell. “Our own bedroom was really tiny,” says John. “When we went to bed, we were really going to bed, because that’s all that fit in there. The closet was actually in our bathroom.”

Then there was the sliding door that opened to a dilapidated deck. “I was the only one who could push it open,” says John with a laugh. “And I had to use all my weight to do it.”

By the time they met Halsey and Levitt Halsey, they’d been going to open houses for years but hadn’t found anything they liked or could afford. After seeing the designers’ work, John says he had an epiphany: “I said, ‘Let’s fix this house. It’s in a good location, and these are the people we need to hire.’”

With an eye to improving the interior flow and removing incongruous elements added over the years, Halsey and Levitt Halsey peeled away 1970s details, raised the floor in the den at the front of the house, and removed dropped ceilings (the HVAC was relocated under the house) and the partial wall between the kitchen and dining room.

They added a steel structure to accommodate new sliders and installed recessed lights. Bathrooms were updated, new cabinetry and floors were added, a wall in John and Reshma’s bedroom was bumped out nine feet, and the kitchen was outfitted with a 14-foot island.

The house is now streamlined and unified—a testament to Don Pedersen’s original vision. Says Halsey, “That it existed for so long with no one really being aware of it is amazing. We’re always standing on somebody’s shoulders when we do these projects. We want to honor that person and say, ‘Your art is still very much alive and it’s going to continue on.’”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Levitt Halsey Design / @levitthalsey

Construction: Perez Structural Construction Specialists

Structural Engineering: Lofti & Associates

Cabinetry: Bellwether Millworks

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To Update a Midcentury With a Striking Open-Truss Ceiling, They Tracked Down Its Original Architect