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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104 DIGS.NET | 12.16.2016 for the company. It's Friday afternoon and Langton is serving as info-packed docent for the public weekly tour offered each week at Glenn's personal residence, which happens to be a living, breathing model of RK1—the company's first, and most premium, model. The LEED Platinum-certified home, the first in the nation to be given the highest rating by the U.S. Green Building Council, was completed in 2006, and the architect was none other than Ray Kappe, a Modernist maestro whose personal residence in Rustic Canyon is considered a jewel of California architecture. A Dream Developing Along with a busy project docket and a new factory, LivingHomes has expanded its product line to include entry level homes, known as the C6 and CK lines, which can be had for as low as $139,000 (modules only). Another first: Atwater Village, the company's first development, located in Los Angeles, adjacent to Silver Lake and Los Feliz, and done in partnership with sustainable developers REthink Development. The Atwater Village project is a collection of sun-filled town homes, three- stories each and all generously outfitted in steel, wood and glass. There are six residences in all, each LEED Platinum certified. For Glenn, creating homes is something that has appealed to him since he was a child, though it was a circuitous path that brought him to LivingHomes. "It was the first thing I remember wanting to be," he says of architecture. "I had LEGOS and books on Frank Lloyd Wright." But realizing he had "neither the talent nor temperament" for the vocation after completing a summer program in design, he turned to what he had always done best—making stuff happen. "I've always been kind of a self-starter," says Glenn. "As a kid I would just get together projects; get my friends together and do stuff. I got started as a business entrepreneur in college." He sold the first company he co-founded, Clearview Software, to Apple. Touring his Kappe-designed home, perched on a Santa Monica hillside, with an exterior constructed mostly of glass and flanked by leafy trees, and a rooftop deck with views that stretch to the ocean, one can imagine the satisfaction Glenn must feel to bring such places into being. Aesthetically sophisticated homes that cater fluently to the comforts of daily life and don't lean on the earth too hard to do so. "It's been a longstanding plan to get into this," he says of his eco-friendly home ventures. "I know the homes we build are good homes. They have a smaller ecological footprint than most homes, they're healthier than most homes, and a lot of people like the design. So far, so good, but we've got a lot of work to do." Custom Ray Kappe LivingHome, Santa Monica Steve Glenn's Ray Kappe- designed home in Santa Monica, the rst LEED Platinum-certied home in the nation. Photo by CJ Berg Photography I know the homes we build are good homes. They have a smaller ecological footprint than most homes, they're healthier than most homes, and a lot of people like the design. So far, so good, but we've got a lot of work to do. L I V I N G H O M E S 2910 Lincoln Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90405 310.581.8500 | LivingHomes.net A R C H I T E C T | D E S I G N | B U I L D