Edward Norton has a new place to hang his hat, and boy is it a beauty of a residence. Norton spent nearly twelve million dollars on the property, a residential landmark in the Malibu Colony. The home had been listed at $13.75 million prior to the sale, although during its more than three long years on the market it had been priced as high as $22 million.
The pricing has much to do with the architect who designed the home, John Lautner, a starchitect who designed Bob Hope’s ‘UFO’ house in Palm Springs. Norton’s home features the naturalistic abstractions of a later Lautner design.
The home, called the Stevens House, is divided into two opposing wavelike trigonometric figures which collectively suggest a delicate sense of poise. Its greater interior and exterior architecture is rendered from timber, concrete, and glass. The sensibilities exhibited in the design and materials are very much in keeping with the era; the home dates to 1967. Lautner’s preoccupation with the process suggested by undulation are very much in evidence, although the home does seem to offer a conclusion, and does not seem to present itself as a reflection of continuing ambiguity.
The home’s interiors present a cerebral exercise. The industrial is suggested, but only in material; otherwise, the home establishes and breaks a series of patterns, with those lovely arches presiding over each cycle. The convergence of angle and curve, so prominently stated in the home’s overall design, is a motif which is returned to again and again.
The home’s beachside component is a transparent eye of sorts, a glass wall which is segmented into irregular shards of perception by a sunset fan of sweeping lines. It is not content to simply act as a passive witness of the Malibu beach, and the Pacific beyond. But, then, the whole house is packed with tension and restlessness, energy waiting to be expended.
Norton’s supporting role in 2014’s ‘Birdman’ earned him SAG and SFSCC awards, along with a myriad of nominations. He is currently lending his skills as a voice actor to Wes Anderson’s ‘Isle of Dogs’; the film will be in theaters next year.
