A Playboy's Pad: Airy Aerie

For years, dynamic young California architect Fred Lyman was kept so busy designing highly imaginative homes up and down the scenic West Coast, he had to put off plans to construct an intimate retreat of his own.

Not long ago, however, Lyman finally was able to transform the stuff a bachelor's dreams are made on into architectural reality. After searching the Pacific shores with the discriminating eye of a man who knew precisely what he was looking for and wouldn't settle for less, he discovered the ideal site some 17 miles north of Beverly Hills, where the sprawling foothills of the purple-hued Santa Monica mountains suddenly become steep slopes and plunge down to palm-and-eucalyptus-fringed Malibu Beach.

There he envisaged a modern lair, an ultrapersonal domain where he could relax and enjoy sun-drenched days, panoramic Pacific sunsets, star-clustered nights and the spectral, sea-spawned fogs that invade adjacent ravines at dawn.

The dramatic realization of his plans stands today, sentinellike, on the ridge of a hill overlooking Malibu. Its main room commands views of the ocean to the south and, over a landscape of trees and gardens, imposing Saddle Peak Mountain to the north. The upstairs sleeping area is positioned east and west to catch the moonrise over the mountain and the morning sun's first rays.

The over-all structure was ingeniously designed as a house within a house. The inner shell rests on redwood support columns which, in turn, are anchored by steel plates to concrete beams. The main body of the house is an adjustable box with floor-to-ceiling French doors facing south to the Pacific and north to the mountains. The planks forming the walls, floor and ceiling slide freely along the beams but are not connected to the columns, so that they may be adjusted for expansion and contraction. The columns pass on up to support the overhanging asbestos cement roof, which hovers above the box but is totally unconnected to it. Between the inner box and the roof hangs a tent, the sides of which may be rolled up for ventilation and alfresco living. Within the tent is a combination bedroom-studio.

Primarily, Lyman wanted to design a home in which it would be enjoyable to work as well as play: "I want to emphasize that my pad was built for pleasure. That is essentially what Playboy is about, and it is also essentially what architecture is about. The house was designed so that every aspect of life within it could be experienced joyously. Where every social or solitary activity -- dining, relaxing, sleeping, working, and even bathing -- could be celebrated and savored."

In keeping with Lyman's architectural philosophy, the interior is organically linked to the surrounding scenery and bracing sea air by entire walls -- not just sliding glass doors here and there -- that may be opened wide to embrace the salubrious Malibu climate. Thus, the structure exudes an atmosphere of openness, comfort and beauty, sheltering the occupants and affording privacy without imprisoning them in traditional, cell-like rooms.

Social activities take place in the main body of the house, which consists of one large room, measuring 24 by 30 feet. A storage wall and a freestanding utility island separating the kitchen and dining areas form the east end of the room.

The utility island, which appears to be nothing but a richly grained Philippine mahogany cabinet, actually contains -- once its top and sides are folded out -- a well-appointed modern kitchen in which the most intricate culinary delights may be prepared with ease and economy of motion. Lyman modeled the unit after The Kitchenless Kitchen (Playboy, October 1959).

The storage wall is a compact office, library and bar. A counter runs the entire length of the wall, serving as a desk at one end and a bar at the other; above are a variety of shelves, open and closed, which hold stationery, books, records, sculpture, paintings, china and the components of the high fidelity system. On each side of the storage wall are paired speakers. These are light enough to be moved easily to any part of the room, thus providing for a variety of acoustical arrangements.

At the west end of the room is a freestanding copper-hooded fireplace resting on a specially designed tile hearth. Mahogany chairs, tables and lamps, magnificently hand-crafted without the use of nails, are found on either side of the fireplace, positioned with a view to the views.

Although the bathroom (or, more properly, bathhouse) is a separate building, it is easily accessible. Its eaves and those of the main building overlap, so that even during inclement weather, one does not get wet. Moreover, the climate in Malibu is so mild that even on chilly (for Southern California) nights, walking a few feet out of doors is no hardship; it can be, in fact, a most welcome freshair break during a close-quarters cocktail party.

The bathing area boasts such ablutionary virtues as a centrally located ceramic counter that houses such pleasurable necessities as a lavatory bowl, medicine cabinet, a hot-water heater and a space heater. A playboy-sized wooden wardrobe spans an entire wall of the bathhouse. On the other side of the utility counter is a five-foot-by-five-foot tub, two-and-a-half-feet deep and swimmingly spacious. Wooden doors beside the tub open on a fragrant private garden enclave for sunning oneself dry.

A simply constructed carport, northeast of the main structure, was all the shelter deemed necessary for Lyman's Austin-Healey in the felicitous climate.

Special building techniques and materials were required to insure the stability and weatherworthiness of such an "open" structure, which accounts in large measure for the $40,000 tag on the cost of construction. For aesthetic as well as practical purposes, Lyman used native lumber to construct his pad. He chose wood because it projected an unrivaled quality of warmth and vitality when handled sensitively. (His love of wood, incidentally, was passed down to him by his grandfather, a cabinetmaker; his father, an architect who favored wood dwellings; and, after his father's death when Lyman was a child, by his lumberman stepfather.) Redwood and Douglas fir -- both strong, extremely beautiful and plentiful on the West Coast -- were selected because their particular qualities make them ultraversatile.

Douglas fir, which generally is not considered a hardwood, is nevertheless strong enough to make durable flooring, walls, doorframes, steps and cabinets -- areas which are subjected to constant strain and wear. For all its strength, however, it has very poor resistance to weather, and when unprotected, soon deteriorates. Redwood, on the other hand, while soft and easily damaged, contains large amounts of a natural oil which is an excellent deterrent to rot and termites. It was therefore used for all the major wooden structural components, particularly where there would be exposure to the elements.

Wood has remarkable strength in bending but little strength in bearing. Bearing is the ability of a piece of rigidly fixed lumber to support a given weight at a focal point on its length. The bearing factor tends to make wooden construction weak in the joints. Because of this, Lyman decided to use a few well-constructed joints to allow his timbers to remain free of excessive overlapping, and thereby avoid decay from moisture and vermin. For all the important points of stress, he employed the mortise, tenon and bolt system, which is permanent. The tenon is a rectangular "key" at the end of a beam, which is inserted into the mortise, a corresponding rectangular cavity in another beam. The two ends are supported by a heavy bolt.

A concrete foundation was considered de rigueur, for it would never decay and would support the weight of the building with ease. Moreover, it is an excellent material to use next to steel, which serves as an impregnable buffer between the foundation and the supporting columns.

The roofing problem was solved by using an asbestos cement shingle. Unlike the traditional wooden shingle, it is both permanent and fireproof.

Seasonal variations in the Malibu weather picture are slight -- there are no great summer heat waves or incapacitating winter snowfalls. However, windstorms of satanic proportions ("Santanas," the Spanish conquistadores called them), frequently sweep down from the mountains with incredible velocity. Their intensity tends to dry the wild vegetation that clings to the hills, leaving the land acutely flammable.

As a protective measure, a deep circle around the building site was scrupulously cleared of brush and wild grass before the first redwood beam was hoisted into place. With the corrugated asbestos roof over his head, and the Santanas' force thwarted by the bolted redwood beams and the ship-rigged canvas, Lyman is charmed, rather than intimidated, when the Santanas' mightiest squalls go roaring down Malibu's slopes on their stab seaward.

Especially so, because he knows that he has successfully employed his architectural creativity to exploit even the negative qualities of Malibu, not just its normally benevolent climate and exciting mountain-and-maritime panorama. He states: "When the light winds roll in from the ocean, the surrounding hills soak up the moisture-laden sea air, transforming the ground cover from a parched brown to a delightfully fireresistant green. Shortly after I built the pad, however, those grass- and brushsearing fire winds came whistling down from the north with such unbelievable fury that I lost the canvas tent that encloses the upstairs and had two doorframes break.

"Then I devised bolts on the doors, so that I can cinch them up airtight and secure. I also applied various sailmakers' tricks in rigging and constructing canvas properly, so that the Santanas have become enjoyable. When their greatest squalls strike the house, I can feel the canvas tighten against them and the house creak like a great galleon...it is not the creaking of imminent destruction, but of the stresses being taken up as I know they should be -- a good sound, one of the joys of living close to the outdoors without succumbing to its occasional excesses."

And that's another way of saying that even nature's most threatening gestures have been transformed by this playboy's pad into pleasurable pluses.