The world of Tony Ashai

This current listing on Redfin introduced me to an architect I didn't know before.

11025 Anzio Road, Bel-Air.

A proper motor court, minus the Bentley.

The 19,000-square-foot Palladian-style villa, at 11025 Anzio Road in Bel-Air, is new . . . so new, in fact, that it was nothing but a construction site on the last Google Earth flyover.

The site before construction began.

But more fascinating that the impressive house (of which, let's face it, there are scads in L.A.), is the architect himself.

Thinking big: Tony Ashai.

Tony Ashai left his native Kashmir at the age of 16 to study at that unlikely outpost of Le Corbusian modernism, the Chandigarh College of Architecture in northern India. He moved to the U.S. after graduation.

In a Schwab's-drugstore-meets-Frank-Lloyd-Wright scenario, the wunderkind was "discovered" drawing a monument in downtown Buffalo, NY, by the dead of the architecture school at SUNY, who arranged a scholarship for Ashai in university's program.

M.A. in hand, Ashai decamped to New York City to work with James Barclay on the renovation of the Chrysler Building. In 1989, Ashai migrated to Southern California and joined the firm of Edward Carson Beall. Ashai opened his own firm in 1993.

Although he lives in Southern California and has an office in Torrance, Ashai seems to spend most of his time these days developing extravagant projects in the United Arab Emirates from his office in Dubai. How many of these dreams will actually be built depends on factors beyond any architect's control. But you can't blame a guy for dreaming, can you?

Ashai Towers, Jumireh Village, Dubai

This YouTube video (one of several available) shows something of Ashai's energy and visionary mindset.




I can't say I love the house on Anzio Road, especially with those dinky ridge-toppers right behind peering down on it. But, from what I know now of Tony Ashai, I do admire the man.

Here's to recidivism

Like many of you, I've been following the interminable construction of the two rival mansions on Sunset Boulevard between Alpine and Rexford in Beverly Hills. They built the Empire State Building in 13 months (also in a Depression). What gives?

In poking around about the westernmost of these behemoths, the Wehba house, I found this curious press release from SCI-Arc, Downtown L.A's (literally) cutting-edge architecture school:

SCI-Arc Alumnus Brian Biglin Building a Versailles-inspired Project

The future Wehba residence, if he lives long enough.

If there are two words I never imagined seeing in the same sentence, it's "SCI-Arc" and "Versailles." SCI-Arc alums are better noted for their contributions to a makeshift architecture of last resort, like these two structures, by Jennifer Siegal and Armen Hogtanian, respectively:

Deconstructed double-wide, anyone?

"AIA citation."

The latter of these two, I was happy to discover, was slapped with an "AIA citation" . . . oh, wait, I guess that's good thing?

Although his work on Sunset Boulevard has far more in common with the American Beaux Arts tradition of McKim, Mead and White than it does with Versailles, Brian Biglin has returned to the real roots of architecture with the Wehba house.

And I notice from his bio, that he eschews any mention of his SCI-Arc past. Don't blame him much.

Workmanship, then and now

NOTE: Thanks to a December 2011 email from Lorna Auerbach, this entry has been revised.

Throughout a decade or more of poring over architecture and interior design literature, I've read numerous passages extolling the virtues of prewar workmanship in the building crafts, with the writer inevitably adding an unfortunate cliché: that it is impossible to find this kind of workmanship today.

To take one local example, in an article on Wallace Neff's legacy in the March 18, 2004, L.A. Times Home & Garden section, David A. Keeps says that Neff provided his clients "a visual grandeur that it is unobtainable with modern construction techniques."

Not so fast, Mr. Keeps.

Luckily, Wallace Neff's 1926 Los Pavoreales just went on the market (as reported here by Curbed L.A.) and provides a good case in point when compared visually with the Auerbach residence in Pacific Palisades, completed in 2003 and designed by developer/designer Lorna Auerbach (with architect Richard Landry). The photographs of this house are by Erhard Pfeiffer.

The entryways to both houses are beautifully articulated. Neff admits neoclassical Italian renaissance motifs to his mostly Spanish design, while Ms. Auerbach sticks to a more authentic Andalucian style, including impressive tile work. I'm not so sure I'd want to enter my house through that massive defense gate, but you can't deny the quality of the design or the workmanship.

I haven't seen Los Pavoreales, or its namesake peacocks, but I did tour the Auerbach house during a fortunate show house event a few years ago. The iron work, woodworking, Venetian plaster, and other finishes are absolutely top-quality.

A visual grandeur unobtainable by modern construction techniques?

While it is certainly true that the level of workmanship overall has dwindled today to the point where skimpy, unarticulated walls, off-the-shelf doors from The Home Depot, and a dozen of prefab aluminum-framed windows can constitute what might (generously) be called a "house," the truth is that there are artisans who maintain the same standards as their prewar forebears, and those of their 18th and 19th century predecessors.

And there are also architects keen to employ them. The's contractor for the Auerbach project was Tyler Development Corporation of Calabasas; they obviously keep the craftsmen needed to build a house of this quality on speed-dial.

ADDENDUM: I recently discovered this passage in an essay by Quinlan Terry, which confirms my take on this matter:

"People ask, 'How can you find men to do your class of work these days?' as if men no longer can or want to produce skilled work. The truth is that whenever there is good work to be done there are men to do it. We have never had difficulty in obtaining first class joinery; we prepare full size details and specify the quality, and provided a reputable builder is doing the work it normally needs no further explanation. The same goes for plasterers, bricklayers, slaters, stonemasons and even woodcarvers and coppersmiths. Generally, I find that the more intricate the detail, the more willing the tradesmen are to take on the work."