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nice touch to the home's staging are works by local artists that have
been curated by McKeown's stepdaughter, Christine Harris, an art
consultant affiliated with the South Bay Artists Collective.
e 7th Street home embodies a central O+ L design principle: To create
a residence that naturally corresponds to its land. "We spend a great time
on the site, just trying to really learn about it and what it wants . . . on
it," says Olesinski of his and Linder's process. "To maximize what, where
and why it is." To that end, Olesinski explains, the home was designed to
"have a conversation" with the view to the Southwest—a dreamy expanse
that covers the perpetually blue-lit Pacific Ocean, along with the curves
of Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The home's uppermost level features ever yday gathering spaces
(kitchen, dining room and f ireplaced living room), designed in an
open f loor plan. Lots of structural steel was utilized to frame the
home, McKeown points out, supporting its high ceilings, large-scale
windows and open spaces. On the top f loor, for instance, a wall opens,
meshing the indoors with an ocean-air deck—an abundant space not
formally f igured into the home's off icial square footage. A long with
the home's plentiful views, such an outdoor space makes the home
live larger than its approximately 3,100 square feet, and host its four
bedrooms, four bathrooms and three stories—linked together with an
eye-catching horizontal rail system—with ease.
Speaking of views, one would be hard-pressed to find such scenery west
of Pacific Coast Highway, McKeown notes. So special was the panorama,
when L'Esperance designed the interiors, he took care to make sure it was
not compromised. "We watched closely to not have a lot of hanging lights
because of the view," he says. A dining room chandelier was nixed as well.
