Skip to main content

John Lautner

The Malin House (Chemosphere), built in 1961. (Ken Hively. © 2011. Los Angeles Times. Used with permission.)

If You Were Cool, Rich, or Bad Enough to Live Here, You’d Be Home

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I found myself energized by the city’s aesthetic extremes and, upon watching Brian de Palma’s Body Double, quickly sought out John Lautner’s Chemosphere house, arguably the film’s most pivotal character: an octagonal pod-like home with a 360° view, thrust above the hills on a single pole plunged deep into a steep, sloping lot.