00:06it's pretty awe-inspiring when you come through because it's not a normal house it hits people
00:12differently it's hard to say what makes the connection they've either seen it on a print
00:17ad or a commercial or in a movie to this day when people come on tours they come through that
00:23door
00:23they get that moment and it affects everybody differently some are moved so much they can't
00:30even describe what they're feeling and that's my mom and dad's vision of what was supposed to sit
00:36here i'm sherry granwald and i'm bruce stall this is our childhood home which is called the stall
00:43house but more formally case study house number 22.
00:54when the house was first built it wasn't famous so we had no idea what we were growing in this
00:58was just home to us it's famous now it's got that word iconic attached to it i took a lot
01:04of work to
01:04get to that iconic stage but i think i started realizing it was special when i got into middle
01:11school i bring friends up and they go what you live here dad was a purchasing agent and he made
01:18a call
01:19out to north american aviation and my mom was the receptionist there and that's where they first met
01:25in 1954 they were married in las vegas they were renting a small lower flat to a house across the
01:32canyon over here so they watched these lots being graded and they liked this one they had already
01:38started calling it their own this lot was always called the runt of the lots it was the smallest the
01:43lot nobody wanted right except my dad he knew this is the one but one day they decided to come
01:48over
01:48and have a look they parked their car right here probably where the pool is and just were amazed
01:53with the view that they saw the lot used to be called pecker point for the young kids place where
01:59you drove your car and you sat and looked at the view and made out that same day that they
02:03came up to
02:04look at the lot they heard another car coming up the road it was a gentleman named george bia he
02:09actually owned this lot so after about an hour or so my dad made a deal with him thirteen thousand
02:15five hundred dollars and a handshake and a hundred dollar bill that was it back then it was honor and
02:20then mr bia carried the loan for them they just paid him back and they didn't start building until
02:25the property was paid for thirteen thousand five hundred sounds like nothing today let me put it in
02:29perspective you could have bought a house down on the city floor three bedroom two bath for ten thousand
02:35dollars dad got advice that if he would square up the corners it would give him more square footage to
02:41build on my dad went around to all the construction sites to find all the concrete blocks to extend the
02:46lot size six feet he was going to gain all the way around can you imagine putting all that concrete
02:52in
02:52the trunk your car and bringing it up here there's one story of him blowing a transmission trying to
02:56come up yeah but the reverse still worked so he backed up the hill the whole way to unload it
03:01to unload
03:02it they were determined my mother and my father to get this built they knew what they wanted it was
03:06their dream
03:07and nothing was going to stop them this is our front door to the house which is not a front
03:14door
03:14it's a door to the courtyard in the middle section glass here you see some initials ch s a lot
03:20of
03:20people think it's a mistake for a case study house but my mom honored to my father because his name
03:25is
03:26clarence henry stall because pierre always had the recognition of designing this home but really the
03:31original was pretty darn close to what ended up being this is the original model that my father
03:36built in 1956 one year before you even met pierre koenig it was mainly designed to show architects
03:44what my folks wanted what was most important was the view once the model was completed they started
03:49architect shopping and they ended up talking to three of them all three turned them down because
03:54of what they wanted it was unbuildable but it was unbuildable because they weren't thinking steel
03:58once pierre got into the picture he just took it on normally in a house you need walls for strength
04:04pierre realized that you couldn't build a structure like this with wood it had to be made of steel
04:12i get a big chuckle on tours people go is the furniture original and i just laugh they go it's
04:17a glass house original furniture would be a pile of dust right now mom was asked where do you hang
04:22your artwork and my mom says why do i need artwork dad when there was no house here he told
04:29the architects
04:30and i want to be able to look this way and see the ocean i want to look this way
04:35and see the mountains
04:36but i don't want to walk from one side of my house to the other i just want to turn
04:39my head
04:41him blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor living i think he captured it really well during
04:46the summer times we can open all these windows and that's an extension of our home the way pierre's
04:51design the house it makes the house flow right into the city the original design the living room
05:00was supposed to be another 10 feet further out but the city said no absolutely not we're not gonna let
05:05you do that they redid the plans they cantilevered the corner shortened it and the city was still
05:10saying no koning pointed to the code book and he says show me in the code book where i can't
05:15do it
05:15and if you can't show me that i can't do it i'm building it once my parents found the architect
05:22then
05:23they had to find financing they ended up going to as many different banks as they could but banks
05:28weren't loaning for the homes up here at the time it was too risky finally pierre came in with his
05:32book
05:33he found broadway federal savings and loan a black-owned bank that was the only one willing to finance
05:39their dream house but there were some rules with that home loan they would have to
05:44make it a two-car carport and they have to build a pool if infinity pools were a thing back
05:50when
05:50they built this house they probably would have built an infinity pool but you get that affinity feel
05:54just based on the view which is the endless city it's magical would the pool mean to us it was
06:02our
06:02babysitter we used to live in the pool we wouldn't get out of the pool eat lunch she'd bring the
06:07lunch
06:07over to the pool edge for us yeah the pool was an amazing way to grow up when we woke
06:12up in the
06:12morning we had to put on life vests or else the windows didn't open up until we were safe once
06:18we could swim good we learned how to jump off the roof it was dad who like you know i'm
06:23just gonna
06:23go jump off that roof and then it started a whole generational desire just to get up and jump that
06:29roof
06:35as kids we grew up eating here mom was the short order cook over here she was always facing the
06:41view
06:42homes in the 60s a lot of the kitchens were buried in a corner with a small window where yeah
06:47it was
06:47prepared mom didn't want any of that and i think she had a lot to do with the way this
06:51she was very
06:52outspoken about what she wanted in her yeah but what koenig did here everything is raised in here but he
06:57dropped the ceiling too to give it more of a cozier warm feeling and that's why it's made of wood
07:03i tell
07:03people he built a structure within a structure we have a scale in this house one side's originality
07:08the other side is practicality when we can't bring something back we go to the next best thing like
07:14the kitchen has white floors well that's not original but that's a pure koenig thing yeah we looked
07:20through koenig's book in case study 21 had pure white floors sweat that'll work it's practical it's not
07:27original but it's practical we redid this recently brought back the frosted glass up there the sink
07:32is original the original appliances were all ge this was a push button electric range top and have
07:39the coil yeah it was pink so were the ovens so was the fridge they had a choice between pink
07:44or yellow
07:44i'm sure mom picked pink of course these panels pull out they blocked the sun for her while she's
07:50cooking it also will cover the mess if she's has a mess in here and somebody comes up but this
07:55was more
07:55used for the sun because it was brutal in the summer you know dad parked himself there we left that
08:00up
08:00because that's his sense of humor this is where our family really bonded in here this is where we
08:06talked this is where we ate this is where we giggled this is our kitchen table
08:18the case study houses were all supposed to be affordable easy to build new innovative ideas
08:24for low-cost housing all the major architects of the time soriano koenig neutra these are names that
08:31everybody thinks about now because their designs were so creative and different the program lasted from like
08:3745 to 66 we were towards the latter part of it the case study program ended up giving incentives to
08:44the people that want the case study houses built because they get discounts bethlehem steel gave our
08:48parents good discount i don't know whether they would have been able to build it if there wasn't those
08:53discounts before we could even move in if you were a case study house you had to be open to
08:57the
08:57public for a month i think julius he had to come in and take his famous pictures but the house
09:03wasn't
09:03done yet there was no furniture it was chaos here koenig was bringing products from his own house to
09:09fill in there's one photo called the playboy it's a gentleman looking over the city leaning against the
09:14glass well that's a representative from bethlehem steel the two girls in julius's famous shot were
09:22girlfriends of people that were just helping him out shulman had stepped outside because they were setting
09:28up for a different shot and he saw these two girls sitting in the positions they were at in the
09:32frame
09:33time magazine put together the top 100 most influential photos ever taken and that picture
09:38made that book everybody looked at that said this is the life i want i want to go to california
09:43you
09:43know i want to go have this life he said one time when he was being interviewed he goes i
09:48didn't capture
09:49the perfect shot of real estate i captured a mood people goes what was like growing up here i go
09:55fantastic
09:56we used to roller skate up and down the aisle in between the living room and dining room and kitchen
10:01which i think is crazy because the windows were all plate glass yeah one roller skate into those
10:06windows and i know would have been the end of us probably how many people lived in this house at
10:12one time there was five total but only two bedrooms now mom and dad planned on two that was sherry
10:19and i
10:19and then eight years later my brother mark was a pleasant surprise so my dad decided to
10:27build a wall here and then it had over here an accordion door my brother used to say i didn't
10:31know it at the time but i shared half of a half yeah but all we had to do was
10:35open this window and
10:36then our room just got so much bigger dad didn't believe in hallways he thought they were wasted
10:40space wasted space and if you're trying to achieve a view from every room where do you put a hallway
10:45if
10:46you put it in the back you're going to lose a whole lot of square footage he just decided to
10:50eliminate the
10:50hallway so you have to cross through the primary bedroom to the guest bedroom but my dad designed
10:57it so that door would close and the key will open that lock to let you into your room he
11:02was once
11:03asked by a woman why didn't you put any windows on the side he said why there's no view and
11:07it just
11:08lets in noise yeah so he made it entirely solid wall dad mom could have built a much bigger house
11:14but i think having a view from every room would have been lost they just needed enough room for
11:19their family every square inch of this house was utilized and used the way it was set up it all
11:25works
11:25perfect seeing the view through the house over the pool it all is in harmony mid-century modern has
11:34gone through ebbs and flows of popularity and then 1989 i believe there was a great exhibit
11:40footprints for modern living it seemed like mid-century modern was on the rise again after
11:45that mocha exhibit and then the house became busy with feature films and music videos one of the
11:50movies was galaxy quest that movie was probably one of my mom's favorite because of the little alien
11:56people and then we had why do fools fall in love with halle berry we had wilson phillips up here
12:01that
12:02did a music video i absolutely love that and i tell people that if you want to really see the
12:06house and
12:07kind of get a feel for it watch that it's just been going since then kind of started
12:10opening revenue stream for my parents which was good they gave all of this into the house right
12:15all of this hard work the house was finally giving back to them after all these years
12:20i think it just surpassed what my parents thought it would be
12:24mom jumped at every opportunity to show someone the house she loved it anybody that was willing to
12:31walk up the hill or have the courage to knock on the door she would invite in and show around
12:36and she was so darn charming she was the light in the room she just loved people what we're doing
12:43today is carrying on her vision of letting as many people see it as possible this was mark's idea
12:49because well the only way to really see the house was either be friend of the family or be part
12:53of a
12:54film crew so he decided to open it up for tours and he was doing the tours for a while
12:59when it first
13:00started but then they started getting more popular so we had to bring in tour guides i love all the
13:04tour guides they're great it's not a normal tour where there's velvet ropes and pathways you have
13:09to stay on we want you to come in we want you to take a piece of it with you
13:13they like to say that
13:14it's the best tour they've ever been on because i felt like i was just here visiting family that's the
13:20feeling we want them to leave with a lot of people make the mistake of calling in the museum i
13:24go no
13:24it's not a museum no it's a lived-in family home my mom decorated this one bathroom and the back
13:32wall
13:33had like green shag carpeting on it with these embroidered little pictures that she did it's
13:38conversational piece the tv console used to sit right where this nelson bench is and it was one of
13:46those old style black and whites we used as kids used to watch tv sitting on the ground parents were
13:50in
13:51the bed leaning against the back wall most memorable time was i was sitting here watching
13:55neil armstrong take his first steps on the moon the wall was just a dry wall but dad found these
14:01pieces of bevel glass but it wasn't enough to cover the whole wall he took what he had spaced it
14:06out
14:07and then put wood in between them and he used to always say well this way i don't even have
14:10to face
14:11my view i can still see my view this is all storage all of our storage is overhead and then
14:16the
14:17wall doesn't go all the way up to the ceiling there's glass there in this way you get light
14:21spilling from one room to another you can see the roof line and the storage all the way through to
14:26the next room there was two main concessions the original design had a butterfly roof inverted type
14:32roof he wanted the living room to simulate a bird taking flight you know when they first take off and
14:39then the wing that we're sitting in right now is the bedroom wing it was supposed to curve with the
14:43road
14:44actually the room we're in right now was supposed to be the carport they also gave up a waterfall
14:48feature that my dad wanted like koenig said he goes i got a client with champagne taste but he's got
14:54a
14:54beer budget this is our primary bathroom dad wanting to achieve a view from every room you can see that
15:05he
15:05has most sinks have a mirror right above it he'd rather look at the view yeah the one area that
15:11gets a
15:11lot of people is this toilet area they think it's a shower yeah they think it's a shower but really
15:16can you imagine i mean you're looking through this glass for everything my dad used to make a lot of
15:20things but my mom really loved her jewelry so what he did is he built her jewelry shelves with velvet
15:26on
15:26it so she could lay her jewelry down on these nice little shelves this is all his work four years
15:32ago
15:32five years ago we restored this to as close to original as possible i think the contractor actually
15:38walked off the job because there was no more money so my dad had to finish the bathroom the cabinet
15:42trees and stuff like that and then even during that time when the contractor was still on my dad would
15:48take on some of the projects he was doing that to save money you know sweeping floors hauling stuff
15:53away yeah it's another one of those stars in the line of successions of why the house is here
15:58like i said they were you know cash poor house rich
16:06we've grown up with this city we've watched it from here we used to stand closer to the edge though
16:13yeah we did i think this house has rubbed off on me more than i thought i understand my dad
16:20a lot more
16:20now than i used to even though he's gone we're closer to him there's a peace that overcomes me when
16:25i
16:25come in here i can feel my parents here it was an entertaining house the focal point for a lot
16:31of
16:32family get-togethers lots of love yeah we were fortunate very fortunate to have that we had very
16:38caring parents they had no idea what they're building they were just building their dream house but
16:42they built something that people have viewed worldwide and it's just a testament to their will
16:48to get it built raised three kids here and had a great childhood it was fantastic they have this
16:53perseverance to not give up if one way closes and it doesn't look passable go around it just keep
17:01working for your dream that's what my parents did and they never regretted it for a moment
17:07everybody dreams they made their dream a reality
17:16my knees don't bend like they used to neither does yours
17:24it's called it's called a controlled crash is what it's called we're not as young as we used to be
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