Where Life and Art Commingle

Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell are not starving artists. They reject the role of poet and painter in “La Boheme,” the penniless creative types who suffer alone in a filthy studio. Theirs is more the sensibility of, say, James McNeil Whistler, whose effete personal aesthetic permeated every aspect of his life and art. A highly refined sense of taste is evident in the pair’s fine-tuned home, as well as in Pittman’s surreal paintings and Dowell’s abstractions.

Even as graduate students at California Institute for the Arts, where they met 26 years ago, quality of life was important to them. This is not an uncommon sentiment among younger artists today, Pittman says, but in the late 1970s, such notions were considered just plain superficial. Undaunted by peer pressure, Pittman and Dowell have maintained balance in their lives by becoming art professors while still working on their art, and, over the years, they have also been avid travelers and collectors of beautiful objects and fine furniture. These days, the taste for a better lifestyle has come around in art circles--as teachers, they find that many younger artists, more open to visual variety now, see design as an ally of fine art.

Two years ago, Pittman and Dowell took on the challenge of buying a house built in 1953 by Modernist architect Richard Neutra for his secretary, Dorothy Serulnic, and her violinist husband, George. Every inch of the 1,350-square-foot wood-and-glass jewel box on a bluff in La Crescenta has been polished and preserved to look like it was built yesterday. But it has also been personalized with the artists’ rotating collection of contemporary and folk artworks and embellished with a striking new outdoor pavilion for entertaining.

When Serulnic, now widowed, contacted historic properties real estate agent Crosby Doe about selling the house, he immediately called the artists, whom he knew were looking to move from their longtime residence in a small bungalow in Echo Park. Walking up the drive of the Neutra house, Pittman and Dowell were drawn to the compact lines of the glass and steel design. Inside, they were seduced by the architect’s birch cabinets and banquettes, the floating stone fireplace, the hidden storage areas. Most of all, they were stunned by the view from an entire wall of sliding glass doors that reveal an apron of lawn, a towering pine tree and a sweeping view of the Los Angeles basin--from Glendale to the sea. The house was unusual, particularly for a Neutra, for being set upon a six-acre lot.

On a recent hot summer afternoon, seated on the edge of a built-in banquette in their living room, Pittman recalls his first impressions. “We were impressed by the house, but we really related to the opportunities presented by the land.” Pittman and Dowell share an interest in gardening, and where others might see high desert scrub, they saw potential.

In fact, the land sealed the deal, and the artists immediately planted 42 pepper trees around the property. After they acquired vintage pictures of the house taken by architectural photographer Julius Shulman, they began restoring details that had been altered, among them a small den that had been converted to a closet, which they returned to its original state. They painted the walls in the strong shades of chocolate, persimmon and sea green favored by Neutra to emphasize continuity between rooms. “We found that there was a logic to the way he used color,” Dowell observes.

They also changed the floor-to-ceiling window adjacent to the entrance from frosted to clear glass to underscore the sense of spacious visibility. “The frosted glass was a stock solution for privacy in crowded areas, but we didn’t need that in this location,” Pittman says, referring to the seclusion afforded by the hilltop setting. They have not, however, changed the single tiny bathroom or remodeled the vintage 1950s kitchen, because, as artists, they felt respectful of the form of the architect’s plan.

Neutra’s houses often include built-in seating, tables and storage units, discouraging owners from importing their taste in furniture. To cope with such restrictions, Pittman and Dowell solicited advice from interior designer Michael Berman. He covered the banquettes in soft olive fabrics and designed a copper-based rectangular dining table in the golden shade of the wood cabinets and shelves.

“The house seemed to be so dictatorial about where something should be placed. We had to find our relationship with it,” Dowell said. Added Pittman, who once worked for Angelo Donghia, the late interior designer, “We weren’t going to let the architecture decide the decor. We were going to dictate the decor.”

Both artists object to the current fashion for decorating mid-century houses only with Modernist furniture by the likes of Le Corbusier or the Eameses. Instead, they sought other sources for chairs and tables with strong sculptural lines. “We decided the house would take more rustic elements,” Pittman said. Visits to African art dealer Ernie Wolff inspired them to incorporate several pieces of African furniture, including a 19th century chair and a primitive bed they use as a coffee table.

Such decisions came naturally to the artists, who are well-known for mixing a variety of source materials in their artworks. Both are highly regarded in the art world, with galleries here, in New York and abroad. Pittmann, 49, is represented in L.A. by Regen Projects and teaches at UCLA. His large-scale paintings are filled with seductive displays of decorative technique that evoke high-toned moral and ethical questions. Dowell, 50, known for his witty abstract collages, exhibits with Margo Leavin Gallery in L.A. and is chair of the graduate program at Otis College of Art and Design.

They do not work at home but keep studios in a commercial building in Atwater Village. Nor do they enjoy living with their art. “I’d spend all my time picking it apart,” Dowell said. However, they do like to be surrounded by the work of other artists. The few available walls display an eclectic array of styles--works by Alfred Jensen and Mike Kelley are in the bedroom, Andy Warhol and Sister Corita Kent in the kitchen, Emerson Woelffer and Richard Hawkins in the living room. Self-proclaimed “shoppers,” Dowell and Pittman avidly collect everything from ceramics and books to figurines and paintings.

Shelves and tables in the house are populated by santos and masks from such far-flung places as Guatemala and the Philippines. But each item is placed on view for a time, then moved or put in storage and replaced with another piece. The space limitations have forced them to act as curators of an ongoing exhibition of their collections. “We’ve always collected objects,” Dowell says. “We had to figure out how to fit them into this house.”

Pittman and Dowell are known as charming hosts who enjoy entertaining. Pittman is chatty and provocative while Dowell is more introspective, but their easy affection for each another leads them to finish each other’s sentences and laugh at each other’s jokes. After settling into the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, they found themselves longing for a large dining area and the possibility of entertaining al fresco. “The house is both incredible and frustrating,” Pittman admitted. They decided that a structural addition to the house would “look strange,” so they looked for other solutions.

Their six acres of chaparral included an adjacent plot below the house suitable for building. For that space, the artists commissioned architect Roger F. White of Santa Monica, a longtime friend and husband of artist Renee Petropoulos, to design an al fresco space for entertaining. White is known for his residential designs, especially additions and remodeling projects, and small commercial buildings. For this project, he created a rectangular pavilion of dark gray planks partially topped by a pale square canopy, a sculptural work that appears to hover just above the ground.

“When you are building so close to an icon, meaning the Neutra, you want to respond but you don’t want to copy it,” White said. “I wanted it to be more minimal than the house, but really I wanted to go back to Mies van der Rohe. He always talked about wanting his buildings to be less than nothing. Well, this is less than that. In a sense it’s an ode to Minimalism.”

The 20-by-40-foot platform is made from Trex, a material composed of recycled plastic bags and wooden shipping palettes. White chose the material for its “green” quality as well as its durability. Although it costs about the same as redwood, about $1.50 per linear foot, it requires no sealing or painting.

The pewter-colored platform is topped with a 25-foot square white roof mounted on 10-foot-tall putty-colored metal columns. Automated buff-toned awnings descend to offer additional shade against the slanting rays of the sun. The only amenity is a long kitchen counter topped with butter-colored Corian and containing a refrigerator, hot and cold water taps and stove top.

The artists arranged a travertine-topped rectangular patio table and comfortable ivory cushioned chairs under the canopy. It is a luxurious setting for outdoor dining, yet low maintenance. Everything can be hosed down and is resistant to the harsh weather. The pavilion is surrounded by symmetrically arranged barrel cactus, flowering hybrid agave and Sereus peruviana , all chosen by the artists for the high desert climate. Pairs of white canvas butterfly chairs are arranged under leafy Chilean mesquite and pepper trees.

White added, “There is a lot of engineering gymnastics going on, but ultimately all you see are two planes, the deck floating on the field and the canopy hovering over the back of the deck. At night, with the recessed lights in the canopy, it looks like a UFO is hovering because you don’t see the columns.”

Engineering proved essential as 80 mph winds tore across the property last spring. But the columns were sunk into cement caissons in the earth and the wood and steel roof was welded to the columns, preventing it from sailing away like a Frisbee in gale-force winds. Said White: “All this sophisticated and complex structure and steelwork affords a sense of lightness. It feels serene, ultimately.”

Pittman and Dowell said they feel that they now live with the best of all possible worlds, as the new pavilion enhances their ability to live comfortably with their Neutra home. “As a fundamentally socialist thinker, Neutra understood that quality of life could be achieved though modest means,” Pittman reflected. “That still holds true for this house.”