An architect and filmmaker take on the run-down condition and wonky layout of a 100-year-old Los Angeles home, modernizing the interior to suit their love of entertaining.
After years of bouncing around LA’s competitive rental market, architect Alfie Koetter and his wife, documentary filmmaker Cristina Costantini, decided to take on a bigger challenge: purchasing a home of their own. It was the height of the pandemic and like many at the time, the duo was tired of being cooped up in their small apartment, so they started scouring the internet for a single-family residence they could customize to their liking.
“We were dreaming of living somewhere else,” says Alfie, who founded multidisciplinary design studio Loaf with fellow architect Luke Studebaker in 2021. “We looked at so many houses and made so many offers,” he continues. “We could not get a spot, but it’s hard to compete with people who can pay all cash and wave the inspection.”
Before: Living Room
The front door opens directly into the living room, which was nondescript and slightly rundown when architect Alfie Koetter and his wife first viewed the home.
Photo by Michael Lockridge
After: Dining Room
The new public zone of the house includes the living and dining area, which opens to the kitchen. A set of French doors provides access to the new patio, where the family eats dinner most nights. A set of vintage bentwood Thonet chairs subtly echo the architectural curves throughout the house.
Photo by Michael Lockridge
Undaunted and determined, the couple kept searching, passing over the copious quick-flip houses with cheap finishes and high price tags. “All I saw was a bunch of stuff that we would be paying to undo,” Alfie says. Then, one day, Cristina came across a listing on Redfin that most people would have quickly clicked out of. “It was the house we have now,” Alfie recalls. “There was only one photo, and it looked like it had been taken by somebody who had never used a camera before.”
“We immediately knew that we wanted to see it,” Cristina says. “We saw it as an exciting opportunity. It wasn’t a cute flip with white subway tile like you see all over L.A., but we wanted to start from zero, and this house let us do that.”
When she and Alfie went to view the property, which was co-owned by a brother and sister whose parents built the house in 1926, they had to look past the neglected aspects—dated carpet, flooring, and finishes, and an odd layout that required you to go through a bedroom to access the backyard—to envision its potential. Aside from the prospect of fully customizing a single-family home, Alfie saw the purchase as an investment for his career. “At that stage, our practice wasn’t even born, it was in the gestational stage,” he says. “This was a great opportunity to showcase my sensibility for our growing practice.”
Before: Kitchen
The kitchen was cramped, and the partitions between rooms made the house feel even smaller than it was.
Photo by Michael Lockridge
See the full story on Dwell.com: Before & After: A Highland Park Fixer-Upper Sings With a New Archway Motif
