62 DIGS.NET
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known hotbed of modernism Trousdale, for
example, Hefner completed a residence
featuring Case Study House fundamen-
tals, but with a more elaborate footprint.
In the hills of Montecito, he designed a
rustic family compound utilizing Santa
Barbara limestone found on the property.
In a canyon in Bel Air, Hefner finished
the astonishing Chateau des Fleurs, a
magnum opus of French heritage and 21st
century living that, while not the biggest
house in Los Angeles, enjoys a larger-than-
life reputation in the boldfaced city.
By that standard, Palisades Ranch—
based on classic California ranch architec-
ture, amplified with two stories, and laid out
in a C shape around an interior courtyard—
N QUIET, COASTAL Pacific Palisades,
a polished white façade with vast
exposures to a vibrant green envi-
ron captures light and sky. With the
clean lines of a modern aesthetic
balanced with the warmth of traditional
style, Palisades Ranch is a characteris-
tically sunny Southern California house
designed by a quintessential California
architect, William Hefner.
The power behind the holistic design-in-
clined William Hefner Studio—with offices
in Los Angeles and Montecito, and recently
San Francisco—Hefner is an architect
of terrific gifts and aesthetic fluency
who envisions highly refined and tightly
edited spaces of every scale. His designs
express an elegant simplicity and often
pendulate between styles and periods,
refusing full allegiance to either. He is fond
of history, but not constrained by it. In the
