Sheats Goldstein Residence to be Donated to LACMA

James Goldstein, owner of the famed Sheats Goldstein Residence is donating the architectural masterpiece to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Featured in films, music videos and fashion magazines the world over, James Goldstein relishes in opening the property up to the public.

By

Share

Iconic Sheats Goldstein Residence makes itself at home with LACMA

Making a fine art of giving, James Goldstein has promised his mid-century magnum opus, The Sheats Goldstein Residence (also known as The James Goldstein House), to where a masterpiece should rightly be—a museum. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), to be exact.

Don’t Miss the DIGStv Episode feature on this home!

Talk about a prize acquisition. A beacon in the hills of Beverly Crest, the formerly known Sheats Goldstein Residence—long celebrated for its triangular shapes, spatial relationships and space-age appeal (think transparent features, a notable absence of railings where typically attached and a skyspace by James Turrell)—is a spectacular work designed by John Lautner.

A feat of organic architecture, the house defines box office appeal, even appearing in cult-fave classic The Big Lebowski. A marvel of geometry and glass, Goldstein has marshaled the house to modern-day glory en route to the big bequeath.

“For me, it was a very simple decision,” Goldstein shares. “I want to open the house up to the public for many years to come so that people can see the great work of John Lautner and the possibilities in contemporary architecture.”

Enter LACMA, on much the same mission. As “Important architectural homes are one of Los Angeles’s greatest cultural legacies,” says Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, the museum went out and landed itself what many consider the city’s most pedigreed pad. Its acquisition, Govan adds, uniquely positions the museum to amass a “collection of important architectural homes” to treat as “the irreplaceable works of art that they are.”

RELATED TAGS

Studio Rick Joy’s Tubac House: Of the Heavens & Earth

Even by Studio Rick Joy's standards, Tubac House is of uncommon stature. Located south of Tucson, roughly 25 miles from the northern Mexico border, the project exploits and explores a relationship to worlds both immediate and distant.
  • September 4, 2024
  • Jenn Thornton

Schenkar Luxury Homes: Cutting-edge Sustainability in Scenic Guatapé

Built by Schenkar Luxury Homes, this stunning house in Guatapé, Colombia, showcases innovative design harmonized with the natural landscape. Founder Alex Schenkar, with almost two decades of experience, created a sustainable, erosion-resistant home cantilevered over a 55-degree cliff.
  • May 29, 2024
  • Karine Monié

Clayton Korte: Going Underground

Wine, from its earliest days, required the storage of its age, with solutions both inelegant and sophisticated. The Egyptians had mud-bricked and limestone cellars, the Romans fumitories and catacombs, the Italian's damigiana.
  • May 15, 2024
  • Jenn Thornton

Rock Formation: OPEN Architecture’s Chapel of Sound

Located in rural Chengde, China, at the base of a valley with ruins of the Great Wall, the almost alien-looking performance venue Chapel of Sound, which hosts concerts in warmer climes and contemplation year-round, is an architectural opus by Beijing-based OPEN Architecture.
  • May 1, 2024
  • Jenn Thornton

Northern Exposure: The Rock by Gort Scott

Fixed to a rocky crag above Alta Lake in the Canadian mountain resort of Whistler, a truly exceptional private house surveys the mountainous landscape from which it is quite literally inseparable.
  • April 17, 2024
  • Jenn Thornton
Sign Up for DIGS Newsletters