Chemosphere
| Chemosphere House | |
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Chemosphere, 2012
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| Location | 7776 Torreyson Drive Los Angeles, California |
| Coordinates | 34°7′39.2196″N 118°22′7.8240″W / 34.127561000°N 118.368840000°WCoordinates: 34°7′39.2196″N 118°22′7.8240″W / 34.127561000°N 118.368840000°W |
| Architect | John Lautner |
| Architectural style(s) | Modernist |
| Owner | Private |
| Designated | 2004 |
| Reference no. | 785 |
 Location of Chemosphere House in the Los Angeles metropolitan area
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The Chemosphere is a modernist house in Los Angeles, California, designed by John Lautner in 1960. The building, which the Encyclopædia Britannica once called "the most modern home built in the world", is admired both for the ingenuity of its solution to the problem of the site and for its unique octagonal design.
The building stands on the San Fernando Valley side of the Hollywood Hills, just off Mulholland Drive. It is a one-story octagon with around 2200 square feet (200 m2) of living space. Most distinctively, the house is perched atop a 5-foot-wide (1.5 m) concrete pole nearly 30 ft (9 m) high. This innovative design was Lautner's solution to a site that, with a slope of 45 degrees, was thought to be practically unbuildable. Because of a concrete pedestal, almost 20 feet (6 m) in diameter, buried under the earth and supporting the post, the house has survived earthquakes and heavy rains. The house is reached by a funicular. Chemosphere is bisected by a central, exposed brick wall with a fireplace, abutted by subdued seating, in the middle.
The lot had been given to a young aerospace engineer by his father-in-law; despite his own limited means, the engineer, Leonard Malin, was determined to live there. Malin had US$30,000 to spare. The cost to build Chemosphere, US$140,000, was subsidized partly by barter with two sponsoring companies, the Southern California Gas Company and the Chem Seal Corporation. Chem Seal provided the experimental coatings and resins to put the house together and inspired the name Chemosphere. (Lautner originally wanted to call the house Chapiteau.) In the end Malin paid US$80,000 in cash. The Malins and their four children lived there until rising costs and the demise of the aerospace industry forced them to sell in 1972.
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