By Hunter Drohojowska-Philp
Photography by Kenneth Johansson

James Goldstein is a lover of light. Sunrise and sunset flood through the wall-size windows of his landmark home on a promontory above Beverly Hills. The house, designed by John Lautner in 1963, was purchased by Goldstein a decade later, and so began a lengthy collaborative project between the modernist architect and the maverick client. Materials were upgraded, views were enhanced, built-in furniture was added, accessories were designed. In Goldstein, Laut-ner had found the ideal client. "Every day, when I sit around the house, I am thinking of what I can do next, how I can perfect something," Goldstein says. Goldstein, who came West at age 18 from Milwaukee, seems singularly at home in Los Angeles. His oversize business card proclaims his interests: basketball, architecture, fashion.

Sporting a perpetual tan and shoulder-length curly hair, he is a celebrity without portfolio. He is known for his unwavering dedication to the NBA—he has season tickets to Lakers and Clippers games and estimates that he spends more than $150,000 a year on his hoops passion. Genial and laid-back, he comes to the glass front door of his house wearing a Fendi pony-skin jacket with a fur collar, python cowboy boots, and a straw hat with a python brim.

Apart from basketball and couture clothing ordered directly from the fashion runways, Goldstein, who is variously described as a … investor and businessman, enjoys spending money on his house. His most recent architectural investment is an installation by world-renowned light and space artist James Turrell in a concrete structure below the main residence. In a purely L.A. way, Goldstein is emulating the British eccentrics who erected architectural follies on their estates to contemplate beauty and impress the neighbors. From the house, you cautiously climb down dozens of stone stairs on a hillside covered with dense tropical foliage to come upon his 21st-century folly. As befits a lover of light, Goldstein intended his installation to be enjoyed at dawn or dusk.

He initiated the project a decade ago by introducing the architect to the artist. "I thought putting Lautner and Turrell together would make some kind of art or architecture history." he recalls. Both were obsessed with engineering and optics. Turrell, who has spent the better part of the past three decades on his masterwork. Roden Crater in Arizona, visited the property and met with Lautner. After the architect died in 1994, Turrell completed the project with Lautner's associate Duncan Nicholson. They conceived a freestanding bunker of reinforced concrete
(the same material used for the house), with a vaulted ceiling, skylight, and corner window. The entrance is straight out of James Bond, a massive stainless steel door that opens silently. With walls from 1 to 4 feet thick, the interior is as quiet as a tomb. "Part of the fun is to mystify people who don't know anything about Turrell’s work," Goldstein admits slyly.

Inside, the titanium white walls dictated by Turrell are curved at the corners. The heated stone floor is canted where it meets the walls and appears to float above a margin of light. Goldstein touches a button on the remote control and the convex skylight retracts and a curved corner window swings open. A sharp, carbon fiber edge around the skylight and window frames helps solidify the views of the sky and makes the openings appear as two-dimensional shapes. A system of red, yellow, and blue LED lights, sunk below floor level around the perimeter of the room and programmed by an invisible computer, blends dozens of colors across the walls. Goldstein reclines on a gray leather bed recessed into the floor to enjoy the show. As the walls change color, the sky, as viewed through the skylight and window, appears to do the same. Pale yellow transforms the sky to teal; pink turns it into a flat black; pale blue vibrates against mahogany. Outside, the sun is setting and the sky is gray."Turrell's theory is that the light you see in the room is subtracted from the mixture of light you see in the sky," Goldstein explains. "So as the light in the room changes, the light in the sky appears to change."

Perceptual marvel aside, anyone familiar with construction will wonder about the logistics of building a concrete bunker on a hillside. Nicholson says that permits were obtained for a work of art. There were construction challenges, too. The concrete bad to be channeled up a 400-foot hillside and piped into the molded forms for the walls, which are battened outward to create the effect of greater mass and to act as eaves. The caissons that support the cantilevered structure were dug by hand, because heavy drilling equipment could not be used on the hillside. The skylight roof, which was fabricated by a company that makes airplane parts, was trucked to the site and then lowered into place by helicopter.

Turrell's installations are in museums and private galleries around the world, but this is the only one with a vaulted ceiling. Goldstein smiles slightly as he admits, "If I get interested in something, I take it all the way."

James Turrell, c/o Ace Gallery, 323,935.4411; Duncan Nicholson, 310.313.1928