Post #377808 by aquarj on Sat, May 3, 2008 11:08 AM

Given the short notice, I hope any TCers interested in this kind of modern architecture will see this. This weekend there's an estate sale at a famous hilltop house in Fairfield, CA. The house has been in architectural magazines and books, and was designed at Lautner Associates and built in the late 90s. That's after John Lautner was around - the architect was Helena Arahuete from the Lautner firm.

Here is the official Lautner Associates page with the professional photos of the house. There are 3 pages for the house, and another picture of the house's pool at the home page.

The house was the main attraction for us - we went on a field trip to Fairfield to see it yesterday. The estate sale stuff was definitely non-tiki, but some pretty unusual stuff. The house is on 1700 acres at the top of a hill, and the owner was apparently into lifesize casted animal reproductions. So, as you drive up the long windy private road, you pass camels, a giraffe, zebras, and a bunch of elephants, sort of like the jungle cruise. The garage in the house has a whole bunch more artificial animals, including a bunch of parrots and toucans ($25 each for the birds for anyone into that kind of thing).

Here is the estate sale company's page, and here are the pictures they posted of some of the stuff.

As always, it's sad to see something like this at a time where the original occupant and use is ending. But it's a great opportunity to see something you otherwise only see in books. Apparently the house has already sold too. Hard to imagine what it would actually be like to live there.

I'll post some of our pics in a little bit, but I wanted to put this info up in case anyone local wants to go. The estate sale is going Sat and Sun.

-Randy