Along with the gift of the house, which features a coffered concrete roof with 750 tiny skylights, Goldstein is also giving his art and vintage fashion collection to the institution, as well as a $17 million endowment to maintain the structure and its contents.
"Over several decades, Jim Goldstein has lovingly cared for this house, which is an exceptional example of domestic architecture and a tremendous legacy in our own backyard," said LACMA director Michael Govan.
Originally built in 1963 for Helen and Paul Sheats, Goldstein acquired the house in 1972, and continued to work with Lautner on the house over the next 30 years, before the architect died in 1994. And Thirty years earlier, the young architect was a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright, overseeing the construction of the Sturges house, a 1939 Brentwood residence.
To get to architect John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein house in Los Angeles, you drive upward to where the Hills of Beverly become mere mounds compared with the vertical winding lanes of Beverly Crest. On a sharp turnout, there’s an empty lot with a dramatic view of Miracle Mile to the east and Century City to the west. An opening in the lush vegetation leads to a narrow and steep descent at the end of one of the most photographed houses in the city, which seems hidden amid greenery.
“There are almost no 90-degree angles in the house. John was very much opposed to a box-like approach to design,” explains owner James Goldstein, the septuagenarian businessman who just donated the house and its contents to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. With a purchase price of $185,000 in 1972, the current bottom line comes to north of $40m, including the site-specific skyspace installation by light-and-space sculptor James Turrell, as well as artwork by the likes of Ed Ruscha and Kenny Scharf.
