A historic mid-century modern house reborn by Raphael Soriano

Every so often, Linda Bretler walks down the long driveway to her Rafael Soriano-designed home, turns the corner to the front door, and thinks, “I can’t believe I’m going to live here.”

This could be the aluminum frame of the 1964 house. Or the 28 sliding glass doors that seamlessly blend the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. Or the floating cabinet units Soriano designed in place of the walls, laminated in warm shades of lavender, mustard, orange and blue micarta. Or the yellow Formica kitchen, with its Pyrex hotplate, wall-mounted radio, original Eames barstools and drop-leaf dining table still intact – all the charm of a simpler time.

The Breitler House is the only existing all-aluminum home by renowned architect Rafael Soriano, built in 1964 for aluminum fabricator and contractor Albert Grossman.

Or… well, you get the picture. The 62-year-old architect’s list of things she loves about her home is long, though the all-aluminum structure, which was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmark in 1997, was in dire need of an update when she bought it in 2021 for $3.14 million. What was here,” Brettler says. “I try to create an idealized version of how the house would look now.”

As an advocate for historic preservation in Los Angeles, Brettler was surprised when people thought he would remove many of the house’s original details, such as energy-inefficient sliding glass doors.

“They said, ‘You’re going to change it, right?'” Brettler says. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? They’re house ghosts.’ I can’t change the doors. It will completely eliminate the home effect.”

A reproduction of the Milliard Sheet painting, presented by Cal Poly Pomona students in Twickenham, is mounted on a cork wall in the dining room.

Others assumed he would remodel the kitchen.

“why?” He remembers. “This Micarta is 60 years old, and it’s perfect.”

Built on a long lot overlooking Studio City, the four-bedroom home was conceived by Soriano as an all-aluminum structure for Albert Grossman, an aluminum fabricator and contractor. Known for his thoughtful, modular designs that incorporate glass and steel, such as the 1950s Case Study House in Pacific Palisades and photographer Julius Shulman’s home and studio in the Hollywood Hills, Soriano developed a prefabricated aluminum system called Soriano Structures that was shipped and assembled on site.

“It’s really a living machine,” Bretler says, quoting Le Corbusier’s famous phrase that houses must be efficient.

Adding lighting above and below the cabinets made a big difference in the kitchen.

Breitler kept the house’s original hot plate, which still works, and added a Miele induction range.

Grossman, who named the home “El Paradiso” because of its low maintenance, and his wife, Simone, raised four children in the home and lived there for 50 years, until the family sold it in 2016 for $2.475 million.

Five years later, the house came on the market again, with the homeowners telling Breitler that it was a “very difficult house.”

“It was almost like they were living in ruins,” Brettler says. “None of the tools were working. They didn’t know how to fix anything because there were no walls, no room, no room.”

As an architect, Brettler is happy to solve this kind of problem. “There wasn’t a standard way of doing things,” he says of the renovation. “It really challenged me. Every time there was a problem, I had to come up with a creative solution. It made it really fun.”

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1. Many of the original furnishings were sold with the home including the Eames barstool from Herman Miller. 2. Richard Schultz patio furniture. 3. Brettler paired the original chair with Edward Fields (and Home Furnishings pillows) along with a vintage rug. 4. Brettler found a photo album documenting the construction of the house in the basement of the house.

However, the second owners left the house, even leaving many of Grossman’s mid-century modern furnishings for the next caretaker, such as brass and cork floor lamps, a round dining table, a Thayer Coggin sofa and a Richard Schultz poise and rug.

The time capsule situation of the house was both a blessing and a curse. “Nobody wanted the house,” Brettler says, noting things in need of updating including outdated heating and electrical systems, laminate that needed re-gluing, antique appliances and sliding glass doors, many of which didn’t open when the house was moved over the years.

Brettler came to enjoy the opening of the primary bedroom. “Now when I stay in a ‘normal’ bedroom, I feel very boxed in,” she says.

One reason for the interest, Brettler thinks, was the historic status of the house. For example, Grossman’s office, which he added on top of the carport in 1971, had all the makings of a basic bedroom, if only you could add a bathroom (which you can’t). And when it comes to artwork, how do you hang pictures on aluminum walls?

In the living room, for example, Brettler cleverly hung a midcentury ceramic wall hanging from a curved piece of rebar that he placed on top of a storage unit. And in the dining room, a reproduction of the Milliard Sheet painting, produced by Cal Poly Pomona students at Tuke, is mounted on a cork-lined wall.

To her delight, Brettler discovered the original blueprints of the holes, along with laminate and cork samples, and a scrapbook detailing the construction process stored under the house.

The house has many secrets, Brettler says, including hidden built-in tables and…

A passage window connecting Grossman’s main office and primary bedroom.

With blueprints and old photographs as inspiration, Brettler tried to honor the original vision of the Syrians as she worked for more than a year to bring the house back to life.

She began by securing the entrance to the front of the property with recycled perforated screens and new landscaping. “I wanted to feel like you’re leaving reality and entering a magical world,” she said of the route. She says of the walkway, which now has greenery that adds privacy and a welcoming water fountain.

Breitler also removed the glass-enclosed dining room that had been added with bubble skylights, turning it into a patio as Soriano had originally intended. A new sunken fireplace was installed to complete the home. “I wanted it to feel calm and light because I didn’t want it to block the views,” she says.

Breitler is framed by contrasting laminate in blue and yellow in the basic bathroom.

Breitler discovered a Roman tub when he was renovating the first bathroom. She kept the bathroom and added a tiled wall and shower for privacy.

Her appreciation for original details, however, did not mean that everything would remain the same. Brettler removed the shag carpets in the living area and bedrooms and installed terrazzo floors throughout the house to match the original floors, many of which had to be repaired. In Grossman’s office, which is now her architecture studio, she also removed the shag carpet and replaced it with a colorful cork floor designed to feel like “fallen, random leaves.”

In the living room, Breitler added electric shades to help cool the interior, and in the kitchen, LED lights above and below the cabinets to illuminate the home’s inefficient fluorescent lighting.

Outside, Breitler redid the pool, which had collapsed, and added a bathroom, bar and concrete pavers that would move with an earthquake. Brettler wanted the pool, which he swims in every day, to feel like a lake and used 10 types of tiles like a water fountain in front.

In the evening, the newly sunken fireplace is the centerpiece of the home.

Along the way, there were some interesting surprises. When she went to renovate one of the bathrooms, for example, Brettler discovered the house’s original Roman tub, which she kept.

After living in a Spanish villa in Hollywood with her ex-husband, “Mad Men” creator Matthew Weiner, and their four children, Brettler says she wanted something different. “My Spanish home was amazing but very isolated,” she says. “Now that my kids are grown, I wanted everything here to be social, and that’s perfect.”

With her two sons living in the house with her, Brettler says, “We all have our own little rooms here. This house is a different way to live than I am now.”

“The house doesn’t feel industrial,” Brettler says. “It has a lot of character.”

Restoring a historic home, as Brettler discovered, is a careful dance between how much you change while respecting the original details. But she doesn’t believe that remarkable houses should be fossils. “No one can live in them,” he says. “You want to make it your own, it’s your home, after all.”

Brettler may have designed the house for who it is today, but he couldn’t forget the historic home’s legacy. He plans to share the house with the public, including a Friday tour sponsored by the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Asked recently if he felt like he was talking to an architect during renovations, Brettler took it a step further. “I feel like I’m dancing with the Syrians and the owners,” he says. “The first time I saw the house, I thought, ‘We belong together.’ I feel their presence here with me.”