Very interesting design making a lot out of what was so close to nothing that it only cost $45,000 to buy the lot. There's even a swimming pool, tucked in behind the house, with an underwater window that looks into the kitchen. And the shower has a transparent glass wall looking out over the city. The caption reads:
Because no neighbors have views into the house, the shower has a wall of clear glass that allows Mr. Arnold to take in the view.... “It’s like showering outside,” he said.
No neighbors. But there's a whole city out there. Yes, the buildings are pretty far off, but people have telescopic lenses, a subject I wrote about in 2014, in "Speaking of naked...":
... the rich folk of New York don't mind if you look at them naked while they use the bathroom... as long as you have to look way, way up.ADDED: The NYT should back link to its own 1990s article "Telescopes for (Sneaky) City Views." Telescopes aren't even mentioned in the new article.This is a city where everybody is always looking at everybody else, but nobody wants to be caught in the act. This is why, from bay windows in brownstones to penthouses so high that helicopters flutter beneath them, there are viewfinders being fiddled with, focusing knobs being twirled and powerful lenses peering deeply into unsuspecting people's eyes.... Better yet are camera attachments and specially coated low-light lenses that make the dimmest apartments seem as bright as high noon, but not to the people who live there....
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17 comments:
Whatever you can see can also see you.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
Don't see the platt of the lot, but .15 acre is 80ft X 80ft. Using acre as the unit of measurement is bad communication. A baseball infield is 90' X 90'. Just say the lot is a bit smaller than an infield.
Reminds me of Harry Bosch's house on Amazon. Some scenes made me a little queasy.
A white picket fence?
are the hillside beside this house count as neighbor lots?
soon may get nextdoorrrsy
how about temblors
The third photo in the article shows a drone's-eye view of the house and lot. The lot is extremely steep below the house, by which I mean you couldn't safely climb up to the house from below without mountain climbing gear. The slope is almost all rubble, meaning rocks and soil that used to be higher up and then fell down the slope, probably when they carved the road that marks the upper boundary. I would find it hard to live there without thinking about mud-slides. Good luck, Mr. Arnold.
A swimming pool that looks into the kitchen, in an earthquake zone?
I am not an extrovert by any means, but when staying in high rise hotels in large cities, I rarely close the curtains when getting dressed.
If people get a thrill out of looking at my dad bod (especially if they have to go to all the trouble of using a telescope), then God bless 'em.
'Whatever you can see can also see you.'
Not if it's dark in your room and light in theirs : )
That topography is the result of ongoing tectonic activity and rare but extreme erosion events. Any structure built there should be regarded as disposable.
Not only telescopes, but drones.
My sister once lived in a house with a shower that had one wall as glass looking out to her back woods. It had a coating that blocked visibility from the outside. I tested it, walking by as she showered and couldn’t see anything. It was a fabulous shower - like being outside but not.
"That topography is the result of ongoing tectonic activity and rare but extreme erosion events. Any structure built there should be regarded as disposable."
Life is but a dream.
Especially in Hollywood.
"My sister once lived in a house with a shower that had one wall as glass looking out to her back woods. It had a coating that blocked visibility from the outside. I tested it, walking by as she showered and couldn’t see anything. It was a fabulous shower - like being outside but not."
I knew someone who lived next to someone who had a shower with a window about which they believed the same thing. They were wrong!
And you're still in LA. I'll pass.
I knew someone who lived next to someone who had a shower with a window about which they believed the same thing. They were wrong!
Sadly true (the being wrong) for us in our first house! Even more sadly, it wasn't the shower but the toilet that was visible from the neighbors' kitchen - which they awkwardly but very gently, privately, and considerately told us at a "meet the neighbors" party we threw shortly after moving in.
Textured glass was not enough! A shade followed the next morning.
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