This Place in Topanga Has No Desire to Be Messed With
Priced to give it some love and then leave it alone
The first thing you see when you walk through the front door of my house is a giant atrium planter box overflowing with ferns and succulents. And if you look closely enough, you'll see Lego dinosaurs from the Jurassic Park universe, two or three generations of Star Wars guys, and little plastic underwater creatures hidden in the foliage courtesy of the seven-year-old who lives here.
The first thing people say when they walk in is, '"Where's my machete?" or "That's ...impressive." The standing joke around here is to say the giant biodome memorial indoor garden was installed after move-in because there's a fetish for California banks of the late-'70s going on here (Crocker or Home Savings comes to mind.) Every contractor who's ever stepped through the threshold has said, "If you ever think about doing a kitchen remodel and want that out..."
No. The atrium stays. To me it’s a living a nod to Valerie Perrine's apartment in Can't Stop the Music. A deep cut, I know, but when someone spends half of an entire movie-musical ad-lib worrying about their ferns, credit is due.
It's the centerpiece of the home; you can tell right away. Skylights two stories above stare straight down at it, and it breathes literal life to an otherwise dreary and mostly tough-to-navigate day. It's the reason that, about two seconds after I walked in for the first time, it felt like home, and it's the thing that I find missing most from others' spaces. Why everyone doesn't have a mini jungle growing over a concrete wall and down beneath the sandy foundation is simply ...beyond me.
In my neighborhood, there are many homes of this era, and by the same designer—from what I've been told, it was a local hippie/Cal Poly grad who was a student of the Midcentury California guys, the Eichler, Neutra, Krisel, Frey, Wexler, Schindler, and Fickett. This unnamed architect’s homes are usually two stories, lots of windows, very compact and blocky, and always with woody and funky interiors—outdoors on the inside and all that.
There's one about a block away that I pass by every morning on my walk around the neighborhood with the dog. It's a little bigger than his usual (more than 2,000 square feet), has balconies on the front and the back, and views of the bay and the sand dunes and the Pacific beyond it.
It's a marvelous specimen that I toured enough times when it was on the market that the real estate agent stopped making her speil. The thing about it was the woodwork inside was, well, insane. Built-ins everywhere, teak, mahogany, and oak. Solid wood throughout: stairs, kitchen cabinetry that would last three more centuries, a study that more closely resembled a rainforest, and heavily varnished flooring that seemed to stretch out into the ocean.
It was a marvel, not a bare wall in sight. But that's the thing, that's the house you buy and the agreement you make: caretaker of a gilded wooden cage the likes of which would never be built again.
So when it sold, of course, I was jealous and a bit curious, how would they curate this wizard's staff of a home. The answer came sooner than expected.
A ten-yard dumpster was rolled up only weeks after close and three or four fills above the rim later, and the home was gutted.
Everything went. EVERYTHING. Flooring, cabinets, ceiling panels, decking. EVERYTHING. Once in a while, the doors would be left wide open, and I'd get a peek inside at the drywall guys taping and premiering where there once was a forest. It is, without a doubt, a space that has been completely and utterly fucked over into Apple Store-Magnolia Botox'd, Hey Girl minimalist hell.
The final step is the outside is being primered currently; the sample swatches painted on one side are that slate blue-gray that the flippers love so much and a slightly lighter, bluer white. It doesn't go at all, and I wonder how it'll adhere to the redwood siding, aged over time from the ocean air.
But I guess that's not the point. The plainness and sameness out of the former gem will make someone happy. Not me, Not the original designer, and certainly not the shell of the home that was. But maybe therein lies the lesson. We like what we like, and we make up for what's sometimes missing by trying to change things better left alone.
328 Poquito Ln Topanga, CA 90290
For whatever reason, be it old hippies dying slowly, out of the massive commuter, renter, or Airbnb footprint of the LA Basin, or maybe it's the constant threat of wildfire and utter destruction while attempting to live in and around nature, Topanga has always offered up at least one or two original, untouched hopes shot straight from a SoCal past of cults and troubadours and onto my browser.
Those opportunities have become fewer and farther between, most likely because there isn't much inventory, to begin with, and once those properties are scooped up, the old dumpsters are rolled in, and the places are gutted. Compact and personal spaces for open kitchens, tile demoed out, and some type of rare but very crackable marble moved in, blah blah blah.
This one came on the market at the start of the new year. A hacienda on a large corner lot across from the state park entrance and on the main route (a big deal in the canyon. It's a couple of minutes to Malibu, and hundreds of miles of trails are right outside the front door.
I searched a few spots, and there really aren't any pictures of the interior, though the agent promises a double fireplace, sunken living room, a second (outdoor fireplace) and maximum sunlight, and a pool. The dry rot comes through even in the showcase photos.
Still, after not being on the market for three-plus decades, maybe the right person will see it for what it is, a home just in need of a little love, save the home makeovers and dramatic reveals for TV; for those interested in being there and living an actual life—this might be just the place.