last-minute as always, head over to century city shopping center for the annual ordeal, see all the cars tryin to stuff themselves into every available entrance like ten pounds of shit into a two-pound bag, say to myself "hell, no," park on an off-street half a mile away and make my way back to the place on foot.
two hours later, heading empty-handed back down a cold, corporate stretch of santa monica boulevard toward my little truck--reminded once more why i hate malls and everything in 'em--i'm brought up short as i cross a side street and come across this modest white frame structure that in twenty years of driving up and down santa monica boulevard i'd never noticed and that by all rights shouldn't be there anymore.
scanning across the facade, my eye finds its entrance and it stops me in my tracks
i wasn't expecting zen perfection, especially here. and "barn" rings a bell, but i can't place it--all i can think is, god, i wanna get inside this place.
it's locked-up and dark--all i can do is whip out the iphone and snap it for posterity and later googling.
[tell you the truth, at first i figured some evil genius must've bonsai-ed that spindly tree to grow in just that way and then killed it at the apex of its development, until i came across the following picture from last summer online--guess it's still alive after all]
turns out 10300 santa monica boulevard was the live-work space of a. quincy jones, a modernist architect whose work i've long admired. he and his wife bought the barnlike building back in 1965, and he remade it as both his studio and their home. he died in 1979, and she's lovingly kept it just as he left it ever since.
until just last month, anyway, when she [or, more likely, her estate] finally sold it for a paltry $2 million.
for context, here's a macro-shot of the mostly-prosaic exterior
which almost completely manages to hide what's going on inside
i fully expect to drive by in a couple months and see this building torn down and replaced by something far more profitable-per-square-foot; the romantic in me hopes not.
[apologies for not bothering to link--it's an easy google if you're really interested]
