Jeffrey Smalley Architect

Tucked away in the rear yard of one of Hollywood's oldest properties, sits a small barn built in the early 1900's.  The Owners raised their two daughters in the adjacent home and over the years the barn was used, among other things, as an office and family playroom.

The children had grown and were out in the world and the room slowly fell into disrepair and lost it's 'spark'.  With family and friends far and wide, the notion of a gathering space began to take shape.  The Owner's had created a beautiful historical garden over many years and wished to wrap it around this simple building.

The horse tack room and garage door added years later were removed. Traditional windows, French doors and a Dutch door opening to a private garden were installed.  The roof on the verge of collapse, was jacked up from the inside and fortified with a new exposed system of naturally stained beams.

The completed private oasis, nestled in the garden and merely steps from the main home, is now seemingly a world apart.

Located on the shore side of the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, this 1951 two story 'beach shack' was tired and run down.  Working with Deborah Glieberman Design, the house was opened up, simplified and brought into today's lifestyle.

All rooms were stripped back, in many cases to the studs, and reappointed with new wood floors, gyp. bd. walls and the wood beam ceilings were restored throughout.  The fully redone kitchen was opened to the dining area located off the deck leading down to the beach.

The spare white pallet serves as a simple framework for ocean views from most rooms and connects tonally with the sandy beach beyond.  Folding doors at the Living/Dining room provide large openings from floor to ceiling, allowing the interior to flow seamlessly onto the beach deck and visually to the Pacific Ocean beyond.

A Developer asked us to design a home located on a hillside lot in Los Feliz that backs up to Griffith Park.  The site has commanding views from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica to Catalina beyond.

The 5,600 sf program includes a two story residence with a living room, family/kitchen/dining area, screening room, exercise room, six bedrooms and a three car garage. Dividing walls in public spaces are kept to a minimum emphasizing an open plan.  9’ high sliding glass doors provide a twenty four foot clear opening to the pool from the adjacent dining/kitchen/family area. 

The ground floor, clad entirely in gray stained horizontal shiplap wood siding, has the appearance of a textured concrete base.  The upper story rendered in white stucco, floats above, cantilevering beyond the darker base below.  Dual glazed floor to ceiling aluminum doors and windows throughout will take advantage of the breathtaking city views.

Set on 1 ¾ acre promentory in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Mulholland Drive and Laurel Canyon, this 7,600 square foot residence was designed as a family home for an entertainment club entrepreneur. Conceived as a reinterpretation of the classic courtyard house, the design was inspired by the owner's Moroccan roots and upbringing.

The stucco/stone house with recessed openings and deep shadows is set in a simple landscape of gravel, stone, water and wild meadow grass. A row of olive trees leads to the stone courtyard floating in water. The 'U' shaped ground and second floor enclose the court that opens to the sky. Passing through the axial placed entrance, the view through the living room leads to the open 'meadow' and the infinity pool beyond.

Terraces, porches and balconies serve to frame and connect the public and private rooms with views in all directions across the canyons below. The 'entertainment' basement houses a wine cellar, screening room, exercise space and a spa opening to a naturally lit recessed courtyard.

The project is located off Mulholland Drive on 1 ½ acres with an expansive 180º view of the San Fernando Valley. The existing two-story 6,500 sf residence was stripped down to the studs and reimagined as a Mediterranean Villa. Interiors were simplified, ceilings raised and new larger doors and windows create strong indoor/outdoor connections.

The existing irregularly shaped pool, built very close to the house, was demolished and filled in and converted to a large grass rear yard. The new retangularly shaped pool abuts the grass area, hanging over the hillside and has an infinity edge on three sides. The pool structure below consists of 12 concrete piers 25' high, embedded into the hill below. A very private guest suite was built directly under the pool, taking advantage of the same sweeping valley views as the main residence.

Off to the side of the residence in the rear yard, on a slightly higher level, sits the new Grotto. The building, clad entirely in stone, houses a small pool with a stone vaulted ceiling above partially open to the sky. Views of the Valley below are enjoyed through a glazed stone arch. The one-story entrance side of the Grotto becomes a double height hillside wall on the opposite side featuring a two-story waterfall.

The single-story Spanish style residence in a very urban, but quiet historical neighborhood, was built in 1916.  The house was a rental for twenty five years and had the feel of a broken down college dormitory inside. The crammed interior consisted of a living/dining/kitchen area, five bedrooms and two outdated bathrooms.  Generally, the house had fallen into an advanced state of disrepair, but the exterior walls and foundations were solid.

The residence’s interior was thoroughly redesigned. Structural changes allowed for an enlarged contemporary living/dining/kitchen area and three ensuite bedrooms. New walls and wood floors were installed throughout. Existing systems, plumbing, electrical, gas, heating and air conditioning, were removed and upgraded to today's standards.  A new open kitchen and eating island define the living area. 

The newly landscaped front and back yards are entirely drought tolerant native plant species set in gravel that are rich in color and form.  Fruit trees mark the entrance procession providing a Mediterranean feel.

The two-story Mediterranean style residence, one of the first in the area, was built in 1923 and is located halfway between the Hollywood Bowl and the Hollywood sign.  The historical neighborhood known as the "Hollywood Dell" was originally a mixture of homes and farmland and today is a quiet, friendly residential pocket adjacent to ‘Hollywood’.

The house was thoroughly gutted, taken back to it's bare bones and the interior floor plan was completely reorganized. All existing systems, ie. plumbing/electrical/gas/heating and air conditioning, were removed and upgraded to today's standards.

The renovation sought to carefully blend the home’s original historical charm with a contemporary sensibility to create a home resonant with today’s lifestyle. The landscape design compliments the spare architecture with drought tolerant native plant species rich in color and form. 

Locale 90 is located in the Riviera Village of Redondo Beach, a block from the ocean.  The owners wanted to create a restaurant in the true Neapolitan tradition that combined family, friends and hospitality.  

Although a modest 930 sf, the double height storefront space provides a bright, expansive room, while the design intent was to balance this with a sense of intimacy.  The room combines a restaurant featuring two brightly tiled pizza ovens and a small marketplace in the rear.  Floors are polished concrete, walls a combination of wood wainscoting and tile, and ceilings are framed with large repurposed wood beams.

The restaurant seats approximately 40 diners and overflows onto sidewalk dining most days and evenings.

The Smalley Residence, built in 1906, is the oldest in this traditional Hollywood neighborhood.  Theme, originally built as a one-story in the shingle style, was later lifted to become the second floor while a new first floor was constructed beneath.  The home, a combination of mid-western farmhouse and Victorian, is made entirely of wood with horizontal siding on the lower portion and shingles above and decorative wood moldings throughout. 

A master bathroom, a children’s bathroom and walk-in closets were designed to fit seamlessly with the one hundred year old home.

All new construction within and without extends the construction method, materials and details of the original home.  Double hung windows were reproduced to match existing, custom cut wood siding blends with existing siding and all finish carpentry carefully matches the very beautiful original finish work to create a seamless integration of old and new.

The clients live on a hillside property above Beverly Hills with views across the city to the Pacific Ocean beyond.  The existing two-story residence, built in 1960 in a style combining craftsman and post and beam, was our point of departure.

We prepared a master plan for the entire site that includes a gated property entrance and auto court, residential renovations, retaining walls, terraces, arbors, a two-story pool house, two-story guesthouse with a basement wine cellar and an outdoor spa.

The buildings are inspired by the craftsman style with exteriors combining natural shingles, brown stained wood beams and trim and integral wood trellises.  Interiors feature stone floors and vaulted tongue and grove ceilings with shaped wood beams.  

The completed pool house includes a changing room, bath, sauna, and shower. The upper floor room is a clad in clear Douglas fir with a heavy timber ceiling.  The room connects directly to the upper level garden.

The client sold her hillside home and purchased two contiguous condo units on the 23rd floor of the 1960’s Bunker Hill Towers in downtown Los Angeles.  The views sweep from the San Gabriel Mountains to the east to the Pacific Coast.  The Living Room overlooks Disney Center below.

The plan is organized around the kitchen/breakfast banquet area with the living/dining room holding the corner position with floor to ceiling windows and the more private guestroom and master bedroom occupying opposite ends of the ‘L’ configuration.  The open plan flows flows unbroken from end to end.

Existing concrete floor slabs were exposed, rehabilitated, polished and stained. Ceilings were reframed to integrate hidden heating and air conditioning systems and recessed lighting.  

The condominium is now filled with natural light and the drama of the city unfolds from sunrise to sunset.  New finishes and furniture were designed by interior designer Toni Sherman.

Phase 1

The traditional 1,200 sf one-story stucco home was built in the 1940’s in the Hollywood Hills.   The clients wished to renovate the first floor, add a second story master suite and to entirely recast the old and the new interior spaces into a flowing, open contemporary home with a ‘Japanese’ sensibility. 

The program included a new living/dining area and kitchen/breakfast area, both flowing easily to the exterior across wooden decks out on to the lawn and garden beyond. The redesigned entrance leads to a new naturally lit stair rising to the Master Suite.

The second floor suite includes a bedroom/office with a cathedral ceiling, rearyard balconywith a breathtaking view of the San Fernando Valley and mountains beyond.  The bathroom’s soaking tub is located to take advantage of this view.

The material palette is kept intentionally spare with white walls, exterior openings and cabinetry trimmed in birch and wood floors throughout.

Phase 2

The original renovation/addition by our firm transformed a traditional home into one with a contemporary ‘Japanese’ sensibility.  Ten years later, the original clients asked us to complete their renovation, to redesign and enlarge the remaining two original bedrooms and bath.

The material palette of spare white walls, birch trimmed exterior openings and cabinetry and wood floors throughout is intended to blend seamlessly with the earlier renovation. 

The project area included an existing dark hallway leading to two small, underlit bedrooms and an outdated bathroom.  Ceilings were raised and small swinging doors now give way to ceiling height pocket doors providing for an expansive and unified suite of spaces.  One bedroom serves as an office/library and the other, enlarged with a vaulted ceiling and new larger windows and doors, as a working studio/guestroom.

The Mandel Residence, located in Hancock Park, is a very handsome brick and wood home designed by Allen Siple in 1938.  The owners brief included the demolition of an existing second floor bathroom and first floor roof to be replaced with a bathroom, dressing area and walk-in-closet for their daughter.

The original 75sf bathroom with sink, toilet and tub was small, cramped and in a state of disrepair. Although the couple’s high school aged daughter currently uses the new 375 sf bathroom, it will be converted to a master bath when she leaves for college.  

Tile is by Ann Sacks with the floors laid in patterned mosaic marble and thassos marble tile walls form wainscoting set in a subway pattern.  Cabinetry is stained mahogany and all plumbing fixtures are by Waterworks.

Careful attention was paid throughout to insure that wall finishes, window materials and overall proportions and massing blended comfortably with the existing home.

In 2002 our newly formed company, Smalley Development, purchased a three-story home in the historic Franklin Hills built in the 1930’s.  The home had an unobstructed view from the Hollywood hills and the Planetarium across Los Angeles and beyond to the Pacific Ocean.

Construction included a new kitchen, master bedroom, bath and closets with an original utility room/basement converted into a home office.  An unfinished garage was converted into a family room with a vaulted ceiling and built-in entertainment center.  

Air conditioning was added, electrical and plumbing upgraded and roofing replaced. Stained wood veneered walls were introduced throughout, new oak stairs installed and existing hardwood floors were refinished.  

The entire hillside property was carefully landscaped with a profusion of colorful plants and flowers.  Stepped terraces cascade down the rear yard to a private ‘zen’ garden.

After selling the beautiful contemporary home they’d lived in for 25 years and seeking an entirely different living environment, the clients purchased a 1930’s traditional home.  The existing spaces were well proportioned and beautifully detailed, but circulation to the master bedroom led through the wrong part of the house creating a very inefficient layout.

A new 1/4 circle ‘connector space’ with ample windows opening to the back yard was added between the family room and master.  The redirected circulation provided efficient access to the master suite and a more logical organization of the space.  Walk-in-closets, a workout room and a large bay window with French doors leading to a back yard terrace were added.

New exterior massing, windows, doors, details, floors and hardware were carefully blended with the existing fabric of the home to provide a seamless addition.  All new interior finishes and furniture were by interior designer Carla Champion.

The clients, both professors, and their two young sons, lived in a home in Bel Air built in the 1930s.  Existing spaces were well proportioned with high ceilings, but the family needed more rooms and additional wall space for their growing art collection.

The program included a new first floor family room, a kitchen doubled in size, two-car garage and a second floor with two new kids bathrooms, an office and a painting studio.

The existing garage and maid’s room were demolished to provide the space for the two-story addition.  The kitchen and family room were treated as a single space flowing easily from one to the other.  A new stair rose from this space between solid walls proportioned for large paintings to a linear skylight. 

Two upstairs kid’s bedrooms sit under a vaulted ceiling and are bathed in south light, while the office and painting studio have evenly diffused indirect light from large north facing windows.

This lovely traditional home was built in the 1940’s in the Longridge estates area of Sherman Oaks.  The home no longer met the needs of the clients’ growing family and we were asked to create an enlarged kitchen/breakfast room with new cabinetry and appliances and a new second floor master suite. 

The enlarged kitchen included an island/breakfast table at its center, surrounded by naturally stained cabinetry in the ‘Smallbone’ style.  Ann Sacks tile was used for backsplashes and a stove exhaust canopy.  The existing garage was demolished and replaced with a larger two-car garage. 

The new upstairs 800sf master suite included a bedroom, bathroom and walk-in closet. The wall adjacent to the bed featured a fireplace, display shelving and cabinetry trimmed in a variety of richly colored woods.  The bathroom continued the material palette of wood veneers, Ann Sacks tile, granite and small touches of Biedermeier furniture.

The original one-story home was built in 1929 in the Spanish Colonial style, popular at the time.  The Colonial style is characterized by arches, courtyards, simple massing, plain white surfaces and tile roofs.  The client directed us to double the size of the home and to maintain the intimate scale of the original.

The first and second floors are organized around a new stair sitting at the heart of the home.  The stair is treated as an element in a two story ‘interior courtyard’ rising to a large skylight above.  The bedrooms are expressed as individual exterior volumes so that the overall mass and silhouette of the building is broken up and enlivened.  The  bedrooms have gabled ceilings and different shaped bay windows adding unique character to each space.

New spaces on the first level include a dining room adjacent to a wall with 18 square window set in a grid.  Also, a redesigned kitchen with adjacent half circle breakfast nook opening through french doors to the backyard.

Lasky Clinic, a medical facility specializing in reconstructive surgery, sits on a tree-lined street in a quiet section of Beverly Hills across from the Peninsula Hotel.  The 7,900sf two-story facility consists of private patient rooms, recovery rooms, a large operating suite, a doctor’s lounge with locker rooms, and several fully equipped exam rooms for pre and post-operative care.

The approximately 3,100 renovated square feet on the first and second floors included a new laser clinic and expansion of existing doctors’ suites. The new doctors’ suite at the east wing of the building consisted of offices, administration spaces, reception/waiting and three new exam rooms.

The new second floor doctors’ suite has an interior hall with large sky lit light wells bringing an abundance of natural light deep into the building.  The clinic will boast an entirely fresh look with new finishes and new furniture designed by interior designer Antonia Hutt and Associates.

Thirty years ago, during Aprthied, a small playgroup in a Cape Town township was begun on open land for parents who could not afford formal preschool.  It became what is known in the local Xhosa language as Etafeni, or open space.  This specialized project targets children and mothers affected by HIV/AIDS and serves to educate and destigmatize the disease.

Initially 100 children filled 2 shipping containers, today Etafeni has grown into a community center with a completed daycare center, caretaker’s house, two stories of workshops for meetings and income generation and a vegetable garden.  

We assisted the construction training of forty-eight local men and women under the supervision of a foreman and a carpenter.  All cement brick is made on site with excess production sold throughout the community.

Because of its successful engagement with the township community, the program has been proposed as a future prototype for this type of center.

The Miramonte Resort, originally built forty years earlier as the Erawan Hotel in a Polynesian style, sits on eleven acres with 215 guestrooms located within 12 individual buildings.  The property was transformed from rundown themed hotel into a Mediterranean ‘village’ where nine two-story villas are set among olive trees, citrus groves and rose, herb and flower gardens.

All buildings were stripped down to their structure, steel frame in the case of the main building containing registration, restaurants and 18,000 sf of meeting facilities and wood frame in the case of all individual guest buildings.  Every aspect from windows and doors to walls, ceilings and roofs were entirely redesigned. All of the work was seismically upgraded to the standards of current codes.

New features of the enlarged main building include a double height lobby, restaurants and exterior arcaded dining terraces looking across the new, gracious pool with cabanas to the spectacular Santa Rosa Mountains beyond.

We submitted a design for the competition sponsored by the American Plywood Association and received a Citation of Merit.  The brief challenged designers to design a 2,500 sf single-family residence utilizing wood products in an expressive manner.

The plan is developed three articulated architectural zones:  a thick wall, circulation spine and vaulted living space.  The wall contains entrance, stair, bathrooms, laundry. storage and mechanical spaces capped with a continuous skylight.  The circulation spine organizes all living spaces along its length with each end terminated by floor to ceiling glazing.  The vaulted space is broken by an exterior court shared by the dining room and living room.

An exterior 4’x4’ plywood panel module is used to establish a rigorous proportional system for design and construction. This methodology provides a three dimensional framework for organizing plans, elevations, sections and overall building massing.