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LOS ANGELES, CA – MAY 04: James Goldstein and Danish model Amalie Wichmann pose before Game Two of the Western Conference Semifinals in the 2011 NBA Playoffs between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Staples Center on May 4, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
HERE is his mansion is gift her
James Goldstein at the new addition to the Sheats-Goldstein House in Benedict Canyon. The staircase connects the terrace with a nightclub. A tennis court forms the roof. The property, a combination of sharp edges and fluidity, has been bequeathed to LACMA.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York TimesSkip to contentSkip to site indexSection Navigation
For half a century, James Goldstein has been renovating a house by John Lautner. It’s a spectacular legacy. But like everything about Goldstein, it’s complicated.
James Goldstein at the new addition to the Sheats-Goldstein House in Benedict Canyon. The staircase connects the terrace with a nightclub. A tennis court forms the roof. The property, a combination of sharp edges and fluidity, has been bequeathed to LACMA.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
Our homes are reflections of ourselves, right? So it makes sense that James Goldstein’s house, hovering over a canyon atop Beverly Hills, Calif., is one of the most strange, fascinating and perplexing architectural projects in the world.
Goldstein, 84, a controversial figure who made his fortune investing in mobile-home parks in California, may be familiar to you. He’s that leathery-skinned, frizzy-haired guy always sitting courtside at N.B.A. games — he attends more than 100 a year. He’s that guy who shows up at all the fashion shows in Paris and Milan, with a couture-meets-cowboy look, often punctuated with snakeskin hats, colorful leather jackets and a woman more than half a century younger than he is. And he’s that guy who owns the Sheats-Goldstein house — a stunning landmark by the architect John Lautner, fusing prehistory and futurism, solidity and weightlessness, inside and outside, that has been a set piece for films (“The Big Lebowski,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle”); for the real estate reality show “Selling Sunset”; for countless music videos; and for parties thrown by the likes of Rihanna and the Kardashians.
“The word subtle doesn’t exist for me,” Goldstein said, dressed in all-black tennis gear and a palm tree-emblazoned black jacket. He’s sitting on the sprawling lower terrace of his home’s recently-completed (for now), three-level addition, which is a separate compound overlooking the towers of Century City and, beyond that, the glinting bend of the Pacific Coast.
“The word subtle doesn’t exist for me,” said Goldstein. The infinity pool on the lower terrace of his compound overlooks Century City and the Pacific Coast.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
He calls this undertaking the Goldstein Entertainment Complex, and it also includes Goldstein’s office and a nightclub (yes, you read that right) called Club James, with an infinity-edged tennis court as the roof, made of post-tensioned concrete. Goldstein and his team of architects, builders, engineers and landscape designers have been working on the Lautner house addition since 2003, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Goldstein’s property, which he has been tinkering with for more than 50 years.
Goldstein bought the Sheats-Goldstein house (built in 1963 for Helen and Paul Sheats, an artist and a doctor, and their children) for $182,000 in 1972. Aghast at its cramped feel and banal plaster, stucco and Formica surfaces, he enlisted Lautner himself to help make improvements. Over about 20 years, they removed cluttered divisions and installed frameless glass windows, concrete and wood ceilings, built-in leather-covered furniture and automated skylights.
“The purpose of all of this was to make the inside feel like it was outside,” said Goldstein, who describes a very collaborative working relationship with Lautner until the architect’s death, at 83, in 1994. Goldstein would come up with crazy ideas, and Lautner would come up with beautiful, brave ways to pull them off. Why not build a clear glass sink for the master bathroom or a dry-cleaner-style conveyor belt for the closet? Why not install moving glass walls and make the pool deck feel like the edge of the world?
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The pool, balcony and living room of the Sheats-Goldstein house, with its signature folded concrete roof, which sweeps over the balcony and pool. Goldstein has been tinkering for decades. “The purpose of all this was to make the inside feel like the outside,” he said.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York TimesImage
This room in the Sheats-Goldstein house shows the wood edges, book-lined concrete walls, leather seating and cantilevered table. Lord Norman Foster, who recently visited, called the Lautner home “beautifully preserved” and said the extension “complements and respects the identity of the original house.” Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
“What we had in common, besides our love of architecture, was our rebellious nature,” said Goldstein, who moved to Los Angeles in 1958 to attend graduate school in business and has embraced the city’s rebel vibe ever since. “Both of us had a problem with rules, with conforming. I think like that all the time. I’m not gonna do that if I think it doesn’t make sense.”
After visits to places like Hawaii and Thailand, Goldstein installed, with the help Eric Nagelmann, a landscape architect, tropical foliage, enveloping the site in thick palms, bamboo, winding paths and blade-like stairs. “It’s a wild, mad, tropical jungle,” said Nagelmann, 67. Goldstein didn’t break step after Lautner’s death, creating, with a team led by Lautner’s associate Duncan Nicholson, a mesmerizing James Turrell Skyspace just down the hill in 2004.
“As the project progressed I realized I loved the process,” Goldstein said. “I could already see the impact of what was happening, and before it was even finished, I started thinking about other things to do.”
Looking at the folded concrete roof of the living room, which sweeps over the balcony and pool. Lautner himself can be seen sitting on the couch, with two unidentified companions.
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Looking at the folded concrete roof of the living room, which sweeps over the balcony and pool. Lautner himself can be seen sitting on the couch, with two unidentified companions.
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
The architect John Lautner, in a photo from 1970 .
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Shag carpet and framed windows have yet to be replaced, but tropical foliage has started to creep into and around the house.
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
The dining room is edged with Formica counters and a plaster ceiling. A few tropical plants have been installed, but overall the landscape both inside and out is far from jungle-like.
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
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Behind the classic roofline, the home lacks the cement heft and dense foliage that is now its trademark.
Credit…Julius Shulman, via J. Paul Getty Trust/Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
To create the feel of the night sky inside the living room, Lautner embedded drinking glasses into the house’s concrete ceiling.
His entertainment complex, like much of the work here, morphed from what he first envisioned. It started in the early ’90s when Goldstein bought Lautner’s 1960 Concannon House, just west of the Sheats-Goldstein house, with plans to build a tennis court and guesthouse on its lot. He paid $800,000 — and proceeded to demolish it.
Years of challenging design, iteration, permits and construction later, Goldstein and Nicholson realized that under the court there would be space for more — hence the office and club, completed in 2016 (clubbing is another passion of Goldstein’s, even now). While walking on the steep, brush-filled slope below the construction site, Goldstein decided he needed more: “I just sat on the hillside and looked up and said, ‘This could be a great terrace.’” That area now includes a 90-foot infinity pool, spa, firepit, barbecue, kitchen, bar, lounge and formal dining area. The final pieces of the puzzle will be the guesthouse and a theater that cascades down the hillside.
It’s a pharaonic effort, and Goldstein’s vision and attention to detail are unwavering. He pushes for things nobody in his right mind would, and has the patience, and money, to carry them through. “I would buy whatever I wanted, and he would never ask for a receipt,” Nagelmann said. “No obstacle will stop him. It’s all about passion.”
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While the new complex is flashier and slightly less artful than the original masterpiece, Lautner’s design spirit — his sharp angles, textured concrete, meticulous detailing and connection to the lush outdoors — has carried over.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
Goldstein has, by most accounts, solid design instincts, honed in part by an early love of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture in his hometown, Milwaukee. His father’s company was based in Racine, Wis., not far from Wright’s famed Johnson Wax Headquarters. Goldstein credits exposure to his family’s clothing business, Zahn’s Department Store, for his sense of style.
He has stuck almost exclusively with the team that created the original house, or with those who trained under them, remaining intimately involved with every aspect. Nagelmann and the home’s builder, Harry Ernst, have been working with Goldstein for more than 30 years.
And while the new complex is flashier and slightly less artful than the original masterpiece, Lautner’s soaring design spirit — his sharp angles, textured concrete, meticulous detailing and intimate connection to the lush outdoors — has carried over.
“It’s about freedom,” said the architect Kristopher Conner. He and his partner James Perry have been leading the design of the entertainment complex since Nicholson suddenly died of cancer in 2015 (Conner and Perry had both been associates in Nicholson’s firm). Goldstein, Conner said, “is not afraid at all.”
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Club James, part of an addition built by Conner & Perry Architects, has a bar, left, and dance floor, right. Textured concrete and cantilevered shelves and tables echo the designs in the original Lautner house.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York TimesImage
Goldstein’s office in the new addition. Oversized windows open to the city.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
That fearlessness is evident in the tennis court jutting off the side of a cliff, in the cantilevered balconies, eaves and furniture — and in the huge, angled frameless glass windows that seem to pull you into the Los Angeles basin below. Glass balconies tilt away at angles that dare you to lean over them. The final step of the floating staircase that ascends to the club has an extra-large gap at its apex, making it feel thrillingly dangerous.
“There’s this amazing juxtaposition of complexity and minimalism, sharp edges and fluidity,” Delaram Pourabdi, the creative director for the concert promotion company Goldenvoice, told me during a throbbing Grammy party that Snoop Dogg’s Death Row Records recently threw at the complex. “It creates an unbelievable energy, like you’re on the edge.”
Perhaps more than an obsession, Goldstein’s ever-evolving home is his legacy. In 2016 he agreed to bequeath it to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art after his death, along with a sizable fund for maintenance, hoping to inspire a future generation of architects.
“I want it to be open to the public as much as possible so they can learn,” Goldstein said. “Whether it’s architectural students or people who know nothing about architecture.” He opens the home for tours and events regularly, a stark contrast to the proprietors of many of the city’s finest residences.
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Goldstein on the rooftop court, with a view of the Pacific Coast. “The combination of basketball and fashion and my house has led to people walking up to me all over the world and calling me ‘The Legend,’ which I always get a kick out of.”Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
“We’re still curious to see how the transition will be implemented, but knowing it will be protected and knowing there is an endowment for its upkeep, those are critical questions for any historic residence,” said Adrian Scott Fine, the president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the city’s architectural and cultural resources.
But, as with every aspect of Goldstein, it’s complicated. For every remarkable trait, it seems, there is a remarkably challenging one. He has no dimmer switch.
He can be impulsive and harsh, according to some who have worked for him.
“Jim has not been an easy client,” Conner admitted. He admires Goldstein’s vision, but chafes when he sometimes takes credit for what Conner says are his firm’s designs — or when he changes course deep into projects.
For example, after Conner and Perry had finalized their construction documents for the floating staircase, Goldstein noticed it would block his view to the city. He ordered the architects to trash their plans and start over. “I know what I want, but I don’t think I’m over demanding,” Goldstein said.
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The architects Kristopher Conner, left, and James Perry, at the Goldstein Entertainment Complex in Los Angeles. Vertical striations are a feature of board-formed concrete.Credit…Jake Michaels for The New York Times
Nagelmann noted that the same fearlessness that served Goldstein in some of his daring projects cut the other way. “He was a dream client, really other than the fact that he’s not a nice person.” He added, “He doesn’t care. He does what he wants to do.”
Nagelmann continued, referring to yelling matches he viewed while working on projects, “The poor architects and assistants.” The decades of construction, not to mention aggressive battles over views and noise — and the parties — have not made Goldstein popular with neighbors, he also noted.
Then there’s the way he’s paid for it all: Goldstein’s is a well-documented path of buying rent-controlled mobile (also known as manufactured) housing parks throughout Southern California. He then either tries to raise rents beyond proscribed amounts or tries to convert them to market-rate or other more profitable development models. Goldstein sues cities that have tried to stop him, said Sunny Soltani, a partner at the California law firm Aleshire & Wynder and the city attorney for the City of Carson. Soltani has battled Goldstein in court for more than a decade, both in Carson and in Palm Springs and Palm Desert.
“Once he files a lawsuit, he makes it so expensive that local agencies just settle with him,” Soltani said.
Lula Davis-Holmes, the mayor of Carson, called Goldstein “a terrorizer of a landlord,” referring to legal disputes with him over Goldstein’s Colony Cove Mobile Estates and Carson Harbor Village.
“I own luxurious properties that are under the constraint of rent control, with rents going at probably 50 percent of rent levels,” Goldstein countered, “and I have many residents who can afford to pay market level that are riding the crest of rent control.”
Soltani said most residents in these developments were fixed-income older adults or low- to- middle-income families. “To say that these people are too well-off to qualify for rent control is such garbage,” she added. “This is closing down one of the last resources of affordable housing in California.”
Tom King, the chair of the South Bay Mobilehome Resident’s Alliance, acknowledges that Goldstein takes good care of his properties, but stresses that rent control ordinances in these cities are not based on tenants’ incomes.
Goldstein is aware of his detractors. But he’s much more concerned with building his house, and with his mystique.
He said he has spent tens of millions of dollars on his compound during 50 years of continual construction, and claimed that real estate experts have told him it would be worth more than $100 million. (Brian Linder, a real estate broker at Compass, estimated the value of the complex at around $30 million, while James A. Ebert, of Ebert Appraisal Services, said it could be worth “in the 40s.”)
Goldstein’s business card sums up what he considers his legacy: “Fashion. Architecture. Basketball.”
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