When Janey and I were in LA for the Hollywood Costume Exhibition we also took the rest of the day to investigate some of the Case Study houses in the West Hollywood/Beverly Hills area. If you haven’t heard of the Case Study House program there is a small introduction in my first post on Case Study House #25.

Case Study House 1953 (also called Case Study House #16) was built high up in the hills of Bel Air by Craig Ellwood who would design and build two more homes for the program. Ellwood was originally a cost estimator at a construction company and a structural engineer and wouldn’t actually become a licensed architect until the late 1950s, as a result Robert Theron Peters did most of the technical work and architectural sign-off required to build his designs.

If you are thinking about driving up to go see the house, don’t. It’s a long terrifying drive up steep and winding streets, with nearly no parking, into Bel Air and the design of the house presents only a carport and a frosted glass facade to the street that hides a small courtyard and the bedrooms.

The house has a quite a few interesting features including a jungle gym on the back wall of the carport which is part of a larger play area and a combined living room and TV room separated by a partition. Both bedrooms also have their own private courtyards at the front of the house.

• Original Arts & Architecture Article
• Craig Ellwood on Wikipedia
• Wikipedia list of Case Study homes
• List of original articles
• Original introduction article