Gamble House - Pasadena, CA

• The Gamble House, also known as David B. Gamble House, (constructed 1908 - 1909) is a National Historic Landmark and museum in Pasadena, California, USA. It was designed by the architectural firm Greene and Greene, brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene, as a home for David B. Gamble of the Procter & Gamble company.
• Originally intended as a winter residence for David and Mary Gamble, the three-story Gamble House is a residential ark commonly described as America's Arts and Crafts masterpiece, whose style shows influence from traditional Japanese aesthetics and a certain California spaciousness born of available land and a permissive climate. Arts-and-Crafts architecture was focused on the use of natural materials, attention to detail, aesthetics, and craftsmanship.
• Rooms in the Gamble House were built using multiple kinds of wood; the teak, maple, oak, Port Orford Cedar, and mahogany surfaces are placed in sequences to bring out contrasts of color, tone and grain. Inlay in the custom furniture designed by the architects matches inlay in the tile mantle surrounds, and the interlocking joinery on the main staircase was left exposed. One of the wooden panels in the entry hall is actually a concealed door leading to the kitchen, and another panel opens to a clothes closet. The Greenes used an experienced team of local contractors who had worked together for them in Pasadena on a several previous homes, including the Hall brothers, Peter and John, who are responsible for the high quality of the woodworking in the house and its furniture.
• The sensuous woods, the generously low and horizontal room shapes, and the quality of natural light that filters through the art glass exterior windows, coexist with a relatively traditional plan, in which most rooms are regularly shaped and organized around a central hall. Although the house is not as spatially adventurous as the contemporary works of Frank Lloyd Wright or even of the earlier New England "Shingle Style," its mood is casual and its symmetries tend to be localized - i.e. symmetrically organized spaces and forms in asymmetrical relationships to one another. Ceiling heights are different on the first (8'10") and second floors (8'8") and in the den (9'10") and the forms and scales of the spaces are constantly shifting, especially as one moves from the interior of the house to its second-floor semi-enclosed porches and its free-form terraces, front and rear. The third floor was planned as a billiard room, but was used as an attic by the Gamble family.

Note: • In Back to the Future, the house served as the exterior of Doc Brown's mansion. While the Greene's Blacker House was used for interior shots.

Yes, we see snow in LA

A Rainy Day in LA

why would you live anywhere else?

twisted sister logo by memory = impressive

Everyday in LA is like a car-show

Good Year

Magic Mountain - the coolest place on earth

A day at at DIGITAL JUNGLE (post prod house)

RALPHS - there for you around the clock

Random 80s wall art

Tires on Lacienega

advertising

i keep hearing this show is good and i see this bus post as i'm walking out my building one morning

mine mine mine mine

SURROGATES

Red Tide - September 2009 - Santa Monica

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon more correctly known as an algal bloom (large concentrations of microorganisms), an event in which estuarine, marine, or fresh water algae accumulate rapidly in the water column and results in discoloration of the surface water. It is usually found in coastal areas.[1]

These algae, more specifically phytoplankton, are single-celled protists, plant-like organisms that can form dense, visible patches near the water's surface. Certain species of phytoplankton, such as Dinoflagelate, contain photosynthetic pigments that vary in colour from green to brown to red.

When the algae are present in high concentrations, the water appears to be discoloured or murky, varying in colour from purple to almost pink, normally being red or green. Not all algal blooms are dense enough to cause water discolouration, and not all discoloured waters associated with algal blooms are red. Additionally, red tides are not typically associated with tidal movement of water, hence the preference among scientists to use the term algal bloom.

Some red tides are associated with the production of natural toxins, depletion of dissolved oxygen or other harmful effects, and are generally described as harmful algal blooms. The most conspicuous effects of red tides are the associated wildlife mortalities among marine and coastal species of fish, birds, marine mammals, and other organisms. In the case of Florida red tides, these mortalities are caused by exposure to a potent neurotoxin called brevetoxin which is produced naturally by the marine algae Karenia brevis.

Palms on Olympic

ZOMBIELAND

and the log line of the year goes to...

VENICE Beach @ night - by Canal Club

Back of sign

The Hollywood Bowl: John Williams

Light Sabers came to life when the orchestra played the STAR WARS theme music.

The Witch's House 90210

http://www.seeing-stars.com/Landmarks/WitchesHouse.shtml
There are so many beautiful mansions in Beverly Hills that it's hard to keep track of them. But if you turn north from Wilshire Boulevard, up posh Carmelita Avenue, you will discover an extraordinary house unlike anything else you'll ever find in these parts.

Known formally as "The Spadena House," but better known simply as "The Witch's House," this bizarre, whimsical creation was built in 1921 for a movie studio in Culver City. It was used in several silent films, and then moved to this pleasant residential neighborhood in Beverly Hills in 1926, where it is now a private home.

But the small house might as well have been created by the Brothers Grimm.

It looks for all the world like some haunted fairy tale cottage; you half expect Hansel & Gretel to walk out the front door. The yellow walls of the house slope precariously, giving the impression of imminent collapse. Its dilapidated, pitched roof (covered with odd-shaped brown shingles) is pointed like a witch's hat. The saggy, wooden window shutters are hung at odd angles. An eccentric picket fence surrounds the property, made of wavy, warped wooden pickets.

Even the landscaping in the front yard is purposefully bizarre, with gnarled, twisted trees, a wooden bridge crossing a moat, a miniature old mill and a sign (hanging from a lantern) which reads: "Witch's Landing."

This house has to be seen to be fully appreciated, and is indeed one of the Beverly Hills' unique sights. (The local children must have a field day on Halloween!)

(In July of 1998, the owners sold the home for $1.3 million to Michael Libow, a real estate agent who plans to preserve the historic house. In his remodel of the interiors of the home, he is adding Gaudi-esque elements to create a 'cottage' feel to it. Also, there is a new intricate garden wall which accurately reflects the textures of the original building... an addition which looks as if it had always been there.)

Leaving North Shore for the Airport...bittersweet