The The Robert Bridges House was in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles. The house stood on concrete pillars above Sunset Boulevard. It was destroyed in the January 2025 Southern California wildfires.
The house was designed and built by the architect Robert Bridges as his own residence. It was designed in the Brutalist style. In a 2014 article on the house for The New York Times, Steven Kurutz wrote that the house was a "striking example of brutalism, yet it isn't the work of a renowned architect and doesn't appear on greatest-hit lists of the city's modernist masterworks".
The house was visible to drivers on Sunset Boulevard and stood 100 feet above the road, standing on enormous concrete pillars. The concrete was poured by Bridges and three other men which he described as "incredibly risky. We were constantly hanging off the side, doing feats of daring and stupidity". Bridges said that "It may look precarious, but it's not. From an engineering standpoint, this thing is absolutely rational". Bridges's wife would have nightmares about falling shortly after the couple had moved in. He bought the lot on which the house stood for $40,000 in 1979 (equivalent to $167,923 in 2023) and finally completed the construction of the house a decade later. The exterior of the house was clad in redwood. The interior of the house had exposed concrete ceilings with furniture designed by Bridges.
References
- Jessica Gelt (29 January 2014). "The architecturally significant houses destroyed in L.A.'s fires". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
- Sam Lubell (9 January 2014). "As Flames Consume Architectural Gems, a Hit to 'Old California'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 January 2025. Retrieved 11 January 2025.
- ^ Steven Kurutz (29 January 2014). "A Mystery at the Bend". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 December 2020. Retrieved 11 January 2025.