DIGS is the premiere luxury real estate lifestyle magazine serving the most affluent neighborhoods in the South Bay and Westside of Los Angeles, California.
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56 DIGS.NET | 4.18.25 S W E E T D I G S | 8 S E A C O V E D R I V E B uilt in 1959, the Judge and Jeannie Anderson Residence is a paradox: a prime piece of architec- tural history that transcends time. Located on nearly 3.4 acres with extravagant and inspiring views of the Pacific Ocean, Abalone Cove and Catalina Island, this elegant, unified form spans 2,175 square feet and is, at its core, a deeply humanist construc- tion that in its clean lines, natural materials and unassailable connection to nature is unam- biguously committed to the principles of organic architecture. The masterful hand behind the building is architect Aaron G. Green, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright and the only one of his Taliesin apprentices to become an actual associate of Wright himself, complete with a joint San Fran- cisco office featuring both names on the door. In that capacity, Green not only oversaw the last decade of Wright's work in California, includ- ing seminal buildings such as the Walker House in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the sprawling Marin County Civic Center, he established his own flour- ishing and prolific independent practice, as well. Among Green's residential works, the Ander- son Residence is a true architectural treasure. "There really are not many properties like this," says Nate Cole of the brokerage Modern Califor- nia House, a creative consortium that focuses on representing unique and historic properties and the preservation of great architecture. "His skill was to bring the house in unity with the location." To that end, "No words can really describe what it is to be there. It can be almost overwhelming to take in the house and the loca- tion at the same time." Not least because, in typical modernist fash- ion, the redwood structure is positioned with its back to the street, presenting as a sophis- ticated ranch-style residence at first glance, but obscuring the full immensity of its pictur- esque panorama and defining V-shaped roofline. But once inside the home's radically recessed entryway, the constriction of that incredible view-framing space is alleviated as the house fans out in opposite directions, with one side the provenance of the intimate, occasionally enclosed private bedroom wing and the other host to the open-plan living room, dining room and kitchen with grand view. In describing this tension in a 1963 profile of the Anderson Resi- dence for House Beautiful, Curtis Besinger wrote, "There are areas of dramatic openness; others are more intimate and withdrawn." That "dramatic openness" is most explicit in the open-plan living space. Gracefully following the contours of the site, this space, like others throughout, is conspicuously absent of pretense, highlighting a Japanese modernist motif, not only in its two beautiful prints and traditional board and batten siding style, but also in inten- A R C H I T E C T U R E + D E S I G N