Under the canopy of the enormous olive tree that shades his house, Daniel Gerwin's 11-year-old son climbs the tree's gnarled trunk like an expert climber while his 7-year-old brother reads a book a few meters away inside. of the house.
Nearby, architect John K. Chan, who recently renovated the interiors and designed a modern 500-square-foot addition, can't help but smile as he watches the children's parents prepare dinner amid all the activity.
“It's wonderful to see the house working for them,” Chan says as the family and their dog, Phoenix, enter and exit the house through sliding glass doors, a classic California indoor-outdoor move. “As an architect, the sweetest gift you can receive from your clients is to see the house working. Sometimes Daniel will text me, 'This is happening right now,' with a photo of the kids doing something we designed, and it's very rewarding.”
“The olive tree is the soul of the house,” says owner Daniel Gerwin. “So we built the house around it.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Gerwin and his wife saw a lot of promise in the 1,100-square-foot home when they purchased it in 2016. Like many traditional homes built during the 1930s, the home featured a simple floor plan with two bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a living room. with a fireplace and a formal dining room and entryway.
Despite its compact layout, the house had many advantages: it was within walking distance of a good primary school and opposite Ivanhoe Reservoir. The majestic olive tree, which the couple assumes is as old as the house, was another bonus.
At first the house was fine.
But as their family grew and they adopted a large Rhodesian Ridgeback, the compartmentalized rooms of the single-story house began to feel claustrophobic.
“The nursery was fine when it was just a crib and a toddler bed,” Gerwin says, noting the small bedroom connected to the master bedroom via a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, “but it wasn't sustainable.”
Chan adds: “It was a traditional house divided into rooms.”
Chan, who began rethinking the house in 2016, says his challenge was adding everything the family wanted — an open floor plan, storage and natural light — onto a small, triangular lot.
They also wanted to preserve the olive tree, which absorbs noise from the preschool across the street and shades the house and backyard.
“The olive tree is the soul of the house and we feel connected to it,” says Gerwin, an artist. “It feels good to have a huge olive tree anchoring our house.”
The silver-green leaves of the olive tree echo throughout the house, including the front door.
Daniel Gerwin and his family's renovated Ivanhoe Vista home is built around a giant olive tree.
The modern addition, on the left, and the traditional house, on the right, can be seen from the backyard where architect John K. Chan plays with the family dog.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Chan agreed as someone interested in architecture as a cultural project. “When researching a house, we need to meet the client's needs and address practical concerns, but we are also interested in the poetics of the site, the specific cultures and ecologies of the sites and their narratives,” he says, recalling the cover of timber that protected Ivanhoe Reservoir in the 1930s.
“The sensibility of the house is very East Coast,” Chan adds, noting the neighborhood's Spanish, Tudor and modernist homes by architects Richard Neutra, Gregory Ain, RM Schindler and John Lautner. “We decided to adapt the expansion to the landscape of the site.”
The newly remodeled home, which took a year to complete, demonstrates Chan's vision. The silver and green tones of olive leaves are repeated throughout the house, in the living room furniture, the stained oak cabinets in the kitchen, and the preserved olives and leaves on the concrete floor.
“Every day you see the tree, you feel its roots,” Gerwin says. “It's nice to see it resonate throughout the house.”
To open up the interiors, Chan removed the walls and fireplace, expanded the narrow kitchen and added a two-story, 500-square-foot master bedroom and bathroom overlooking the reservoir, connecting the family to the lake, walking trail and An olive grove in the small park across the street.
When you enter the home, the kitchen opens onto an open dining room and living room bathed in natural light thanks to shifting ceiling lines that create transitions instead of walls. To add more drama, there is a giant picture window in the living room that overlooks the backyard. When framing children playing outdoors, Gerwin compares it to a “diorama in a zoo or natural history museum.”
The kitchen cabinets are painted in a gray tone reminiscent of the olive outside.
(Esteban Schauer)
Walls were removed to open up the divided interiors of the traditional house. “There are many interesting layout changes inside the house,” says the owner.
(Esteban Schauer)
“One of the things I enjoy about the house is the geometry,” Gerwin says. “Inside the house there are many interesting plane changes. It takes a certain type of person to want to invest time and energy into something like this. John is that person. It continues to be a pleasure for me to live here.”
The elevated reading nook above the kitchen allows children and guests to visit Gerwin while he cooks. It also offers a reverse panorama of the house. Instead of being locked in separate rooms, the family can face each other while cooking and doing homework in what Chan describes as an “egalitarian” design choice.
“Socially, the kitchen is not for servants; It’s for the whole family,” she says.
Daniel Gerwin prepares dinner while his son reads in the corner.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Because their house is on a corner and is exposed to hundreds of people walking around the reservoir daily, Gerwin and his wife were well aware that their new bedroom, which overlooks the pedestrian walkway, would have a fishbowl effect.
Chan felt it was important to connect the expansion to the reservoir. “The house has its protected spaces and, interestingly, as an investment, connects them deeply with the lake,” says Chan. “The bedroom takes you to the lake.”
If you've hiked the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs, you can't miss the addition, with its modern spike roof, glass bay window, corrugated roof, and dark cedar siding.
The owners say they are comfortable with being exposed in this way.
“He makes me make the bed,” Gershwin jokes. “I often see people looking at me from the trail. But we are not in our room during the day. In the morning, I can open the top of the roller blinds and still have the bottom closed for privacy.” (Chan installed a clear glass railing in front of the sliding glass doors for safety, allowing easy access to the windows and sliding glass doors and an uninterrupted view of the lake.)
When Gerwin looks out his bedroom window, he sees a community and, finally, when the Ivanhoe Reservoir fills with water again, a blue sea.
Master bedroom windows connect the home to the Silver Lake Reservoir, its community, and the small park across the street.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
The house, seen as a blot on the suburban landscape, overlooks Ivanhoe Reservoir in 2022 before it was drained for new aeration and recirculation infrastructure.
(Esteban Schauer)
Similarly, in the new bathroom, where the sloping roof lines and angles converge, the color of the cement tiles echoes the tank and the sky.
Below the house on the ground floor, a previously disallowed shared garage conversion is now part of the house. Chan updated the side-by-side spaces to include an art studio for Gerwin, an office and a guest room with a folding bed and a small existing bathroom.
Chan considered allowing the garage as an ADU, but it wasn't a priority for the family. Although Gerwin predicts that one of her children might one day inhabit the space, until then it serves as a guest room for the couple's parents and for work needs.
The art studio works well for Gerwin, who previously had a studio in Lincoln Heights. “It's a little tight, but I can open the doors for ventilation, and at night I can close the mosquito net so I don't have to scrape bugs off my paintings.”
Photos by Stephen Schauer
Artist Daniel Gerwin in his studio, directly below his bedroom and facing the street.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
You can also do driveway carpentry and work at night when your family is sleeping.
“If I have an hour's window, I can go downstairs and work instead of driving to a studio,” he says. As president of the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation, Gerwin is also able to hold board meetings in the office space.
Chan, who maintains that the addition reconnects the family to where they live, says that by embracing the narrative of the olive tree, it became the substance of the house.
“It was important for the house to emerge from the foliage,” he says. “The pitch of the roof is designed to accommodate the tree growing at this angle. It has a strong presence but is integrated into its context. The large hedge and the shade of the olive tree that hangs over the house are important aspects. “
For many people, Silver Lake Reservoir is an oasis in a fast-paced city. But for this family, it's an extension of their home.
“It's fun to see people walking or running,” Gerwin says as he walks through Phoenix on the pedestrian path. “Living near a lake is a pleasure. How many people can do that?
