SPACES
Michael LaFetra
The House Collector
Text and Photography by Tim Street-Porter

To many people, Los Angeles is synonymous with the world of entertainment. To lovers of architecture, however, L.A.’s claim to fame may be its unrivaled inventory of classic modernist residences from the last century: from early ventures in protomodernism by Irving Gill, starting in 1911, to John Lautner’s revolutionary freeform buildings, designed through the 1980s.

These houses were mostly ignored until a few years ago. Then a new generation of younger homeowners, many from the city’s entertainment industry, inspired by a broadening interest in modernism, arrived on the scene. Neglected works by Richard Neutra, Rudolf Schindler, Pierre Koenig and Lautner were rediscovered, renovated and made fashionable. Gradually these houses became something worth paying a premium for.

In 1999, a somewhat disenchanted actor and producer, Michael LaFetra, arrived in L.A. from New York. Tired of waiting for the phone