| Put A Cork On It :: Take it from Javier Vasquez, who knows his way around kitchens – try eco-friendly cork flooring in lieu of wood. Not only is cork kinder to the body – you’re less likely to break things that fall on the floor. See More :: View more of Dex Studio’s work. |
Javier Vasquez grew up around commercial kitchens. Having been raised in his family’s restaurant chain, Miguel’s, he understood that those kitchens – such efficient but confining spaces – truly are the heart of the business.
At home, a kitchen needs to be built for efficiency, too. But as the heart of a house, it has to be open to all kinds of possibilities, especially because it must accommodate a family. If Vasquez’s home kitchen could embrace seamless indoor-outdoor living, then it would be easy for the rest of the house to follow suit.
To realize this vision, he turned to Dex Studio in Venice, Calif., which handled the architecture of his Newport Heights home. Vasquez had long admired the contemporary work of Dex’s principal designer Glen Bell on restaurants such as The Rose Café in Venice and Melisse in Los Angeles.
“Javier wanted mainly a home that could grow and have room for a future family,” Bell says. “One of the things I immediately saw about Javier is that he has a large family and they like to entertain. Having the space for extended family was important to him.”
Vasquez, like him, wanted “as much as possible to bring the outdoors in,” Bell says.
The outside spaces of the house are adorned with liquid elements. At the front, there’s a small yard adorned with a modern water garden – an arrangement of horizontal cement bars that enable water to cascade from one bar to the next and into a koi pond. It’s a visual and auditory feature that welcomes people from the street to the front yard and eventually into the home, Bell says.
There are more aquatic features in the back of house, such as the rectangular pool and spa next to the firepit. Several rooms open to this outdoor space, but of these, the most notable, of course, is the kitchen.
“The kitchen is one of my favorite rooms,” Bell says. “On the one hand, I love the idea of the kitchen as a showplace. But it still has to be a working kitchen.”
There’s an oversized stainless sink that’s a modern play on the farmhouse sink, perfect for the many dishes needed when the family is in town. The center island is unusual: It’s really two long islands – one made of Caesarstone, the other, of stainless steel – placed back to back. Cork was used on the floor to make the kitchen user-friendly, while bamboo was used for the rest of the house.
When the weather is warm, Vasquez opens the big sliding doors and windows to create a fluid transition between the kitchen and the pool area, so that whoever is preparing food can still be part of the action taking place outside.
To connect all of these spaces, inside and outside, Bell imparted a casual contemporary aesthetic – one that fit into a neighborhood filled with a mix of styles, from modern to ranch to Mediterranean. Still, you can’t miss the choice of chartreuse on the exterior. It’s a color that’s quite popular in ranch remodels in Newport Beach, but here, it’s done quite boldly.
The house has “modern lines with a crafted approach,” says Bell, who counts Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Lautner as inspiration for his work. “For example, we used concrete blocks, but we detailed them and we didn’t assemble them in a traditional sense. We laid them so that the pattern plays with light and shadow.”
This attention to the crafted aspects of the materials lent the house what Vasquez calls “soft modern.” From the beginning, he wanted a contemporary vibe but not one that was “cold and sterile,” he says.
His favorite feature of all? The water garden with a concrete divider in the front yard. “It’s very tranquil,” he says, “and gives the house a spa-like feeling.”
