An Introduction to Modern Textiles: Kit out your furniture in luxurious silk or no-frills leather,; textiles can add just as much dimension to room as art, and can be equally collectible.

When not in use as the headboard, the large redwood slab folds down to become a desk.

“What often happens in our relationship is I come to Funn with an idea and he makes it into something livable.” —Vincent Kartheiser

In the living area of actor Vincent Kartheiser’s Hollywood cabin, redesigned by Funn Roberts to maximize every last inch of space, an Eames lounge chair and ottoman mix with a couch and coffee table by Cisco Home from HD Buttercup. The table in the main room is from West Elm.

Kartheiser’s private courtyard includes a covered seating area and fire pit, designed by Roberts.

Roberts found the Montauk black slate, which he continued in a second bath.

Classic butterfly chairs from Universal Patio Furniture are stationed by the pool. The mural is by street artist Morley, a close friend.

For the bathroom inside a renovated Hollywood bungalow, architect Noah Walker used a simple palette of gray and white tile, black countertops, and stainless steel fixtures.

Kartheiser's courtyard also includes a dry sauna with a ceiling made from 2,500 pieces of wood.

“I believe that whenever you’re hiring an artist, and Funn is an artist, he’s going to do his best work if he’s trusted,” says Kartheiser.

The bed was designed to hang from the ceiling and can be hoisted up and pulled down as needed.

He worked with Kartheiser’s existing appliances in the kitchen, trading the old cabinetry for new teak.

Living Moss wall in powder room created by Minarc.

Custom shoji-inspired screens of Roberts’s design conceal the closet and extend to provide privacy for the adjacent shower and soaking tub.

When JAC Interiors was commissioned to revive an old 1,200-square-foot Hollywood home, the clients—a young couple who the designers call "fun and quirky"—requested the firm find a way to transform the space with as little construction as possible. The fireplace is a custom-made, three-dimensional feature that stands in stark contrast to the soft woods and white walls that make up the rest of the room.

The area includes a Wally planter from Woolly Pocket near the custom steel-and-glass doors.

A curtain slides across for privacy.

The bed is counterbalanced by a 300-pound weight.

Donald Wexler arrived in Palm Springs in 1952 after a stint at Richard Neutra’s office in Los Angeles eager to build on a large scale with steel—hence the prefab Steel Development Houses.

In the guest bathroom, Givone installed a hand-chiseled sink made of 17th-century marble quarried from the hills outside of Rome.

In Seattle's rapidly developing South Lake Union neighborhood, the Art Stable is a classic example of urban infill. Built on the site of a former horse stable, the seven-story mixed-use building carries its history into the future with highly adaptable live/work units.

At their A. Quincy Jones house in Los Angeles, architects Cory Buckner and Nick Roberts used permeable pavers to help the soil retain moisture.

Marcel Breuer Hooper House II Exterior Courtyard House View

Villain Arjen Rudd’s modern, canyon-top lair was an integral part of the Lethal Weapon 2 screenplay from the very beginning. Its role only grew larger as the more downbeat first draft of Shane Black’s script (Gibson’s Riggs was originally fated to die at the end) was revised by Black’s successor, Jeffrey Boam. The challenge was finding an existing Los Angeles–area structure that matched the one imagined on the page. John Lautner, the American mid-century modern master who apprenticed under Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1930s, designed Garcia House in 1962 for jazz arranger Russell Garcia. It still sits high atop the Hollywood Hills at 7436 Mulholland Drive. With its unique almond eye shape topped by a curved, parabolic roof and supported by steel stilts sixty feet above the canyon below, the house is also known as the Rainbow House, after the colorful stained-glass panels that dot its facade.

Schneidman House and owner, Kristin MacDowell (MHA 301). In 1946, a group of returning servicemen began talks of creating a housing cooperative to build a utopian community on a dusty hillside above Los Angeles. Soon, more than 400 families were on board, and the Mutual Housing Association was born.

Built in 1963, the Flansburgh House remains an architectural gem within Lincoln, Mass.

Segerholt Residence Exterior Driveway

Last year, Tahquitz Plaza, a business complex Kaptur designed in the 1970s, underwent a restoration, which he helped oversee.

Hooper House II's new owner, Richard North, has altered the house very little, though he did convert the carport into an enclosed garage to provide greater protection for his collection of automobiles. Read more about the mid-20th century Marcel Breuer Hooper House here.

Architect Grant explains that the recessed orange wall with built-in storage shelving is a counterpoint to the view of Boston in the opposite direction.

For a family of four, Ueda Design Studio restores the luminous-yet-drafty midcentury home of Alden Mason with warm materials and sensible restraint.

Built on the site of a former horse stable, Art Stable is a mixed-use infill project in Seattle, Washington, that boasts an 80-foot-tall hinge for hand-cranked doors. Photo by: Benjamin Benschneider.