The Sheats-Goldstein Residence

John Lautner’s 1963 house above Beverly Crest, refined for five decades by its second owner and promised to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Sheats-Goldstein Residence stands on a sandstone ledge in the Beverly Crest neighborhood of Los Angeles, a short distance uphill from the Beverly Hills city limit. John Lautner designed and built it between 1961 and 1963, taking the ledge as the premise for a cave-like dwelling that opens toward Benedict Canyon and the city below (Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026). The house covers roughly 4,500 square feet and is built of poured-in-place concrete, steel, wood, and glass. Its second owner, James Goldstein, bought it in 1972 and spent the following five decades refining it, first with Lautner and later with the architects who succeeded him. In 2016 he pledged the house, its grounds, and much of their contents to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which counts the residence as the first work of architecture in its collection (Schneider, 2026).

The Architect and His Clients

Lautner was born in Marquette, Michigan, in 1911, and his first experience of construction came at age twelve, when he helped his father build a chalet his mother had designed. He earned a degree in English from what is now Northern Michigan University, where the only architecture course offered was a history survey. After reading Frank Lloyd Wright’s autobiography, he applied to the Taliesin Fellowship in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and served from 1933 to 1939 as one of Wright’s original fellows (Los Angeles Conservancy, n.d.). In 1937 he supervised construction of two Wright projects, and two years later he opened his own practice in Los Angeles (John Lautner Foundation, n.d.). Over a career of more than fifty-five years he completed more than fifty significant buildings in Southern California, and the Los Angeles Conservancy credits him with pioneering the use of concrete as both a sculptural and a structural material.

The house was commissioned by Helen Taylor Sheats and Paul Sheats, who lived there with their three children. Helen was an architectural designer and a Neo-Fauvist painter. Paul was dean of University Extension and a professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education. The couple already knew Lautner’s work firsthand, having hired him in 1948 to design the Sheats Apartments in Westwood, a short distance from the UCLA campus (Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026).

A House Built for the Climate

The plan centers on a triangular living room. Lautner left the room fully open to the terrace, with a curtain of forced air as its only enclosure, a decision that depended on the mild Mediterranean climate of Southern California and the warm canyon winds of the Santa Monica Mountains. Above the room, an angular coffered concrete ceiling rises and extends outward to shade the pool. Lautner cast 750 drinking glasses into the coffers as miniature skylights, and over the course of the day they throw shifting points of light across the floor and the built-in seating below (Architectuul, n.d.; Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026).

The mechanical systems follow the same reasoning. The house has no air conditioning and cools itself through cross ventilation. Copper pipes laid beneath the floors carry radiant heat, and the same circuit warms the pool. Covered exterior walkways connect the living spaces to the guest bedrooms and the master bedroom. At Helen Sheats’s request, the master bedroom and her studio were given windows looking into the pool so she could watch her children swim while she painted (Architectuul, n.d.). Lautner designed the interiors, windows, lighting, rugs, and furniture along with the structure itself, and the angular geometry of the house carries through to its door handles, light fixtures, walkways, and the stepping stones of the koi pond (Schneider, 2026).

James Goldstein and the Work of Perfecting

The house passed through two further owners before Goldstein bought it in 1972 (SoCalPulse, 2020). He had been looking for a larger home for his Afghan hound, Natasha, and the house was in poor repair when he first walked through it (Schneider, 2026). He later recalled, “Even though it was in horrible shape, I immediately knew this was it” (SURFACE, 2017). He then engaged Lautner in a long program of improvements that the two men called “perfecting” the house, and the partnership continued until Lautner’s death in 1994. LACMA dates the principal remodel from 1980 to 1994 (Schneider, 2026).

The work proceeded in stages so that parts of the house remained occupied throughout. Stucco ceilings were replaced with redwood, steel mullions were removed in favor of frameless glass, and skylights in the kitchen, dining room, and guest bathroom were made operable so they open fully to the sky. The kitchen received wet-sanded concrete counters and cabinetry in stainless steel and bubinga, an African hardwood. A 1980s remodel rebuilt the entrance around a new koi pond, stepping stones, and a waterfall (Architectuul, n.d.). The pool was given a zero edge, the master suite was renovated, and the surrounding landscape was substantially reworked (designboom, 2024). Lautner and Goldstein also designed custom furniture in concrete, glass, and wood, the first time Lautner had taken on furniture of this kind. The pieces include angular concrete and leather sofas, an all-glass sink with no faucets, a dining table built as a floating plane, and motorized skylights (Schneider, 2026).

The Estate After Lautner

While work on the house continued, Goldstein bought the neighboring Concannon Residence, also designed by Lautner, as the future site of a tennis court and guest house, and did so with Lautner’s blessing. The two men began schematic plans for both, but Lautner died in 1994 before the designs were fully developed. His apprentice and associate Duncan Nicholson carried the project forward until his own death in 2015, after which Nicholson’s project architects, Kristopher Conner and James Perry, formed Conner + Perry Architects (designboom, 2024). The firm now serves as architect of record for the property and oversees the maintenance and restoration of the original residence (AIA Los Angeles, 2026).

Goldstein originally conceived Above Horizon, a Skyspace by the light artist James Turrell, as a collaboration between Turrell and Lautner. Lautner died before he could contribute substantially, and Nicholson’s office completed the work in 2004. It sits on a steep slope below the house and is built of the same materials as the residence, with two folding carbon-fiber portals, a built-in concrete lounge, and thousands of concealed LEDs that light the room each evening (Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026). Nicholson’s office connected it to the house through a sequence of concrete stairs, paths, sculpture installations, and follies (designboom, 2024).

The Goldstein Entertainment Complex, begun in the early 2000s, is the largest addition to the estate. Lautner had pictured it tucked beneath the main house, but the demands of building into the hillside moved it beneath the tennis court (L.A. Forum, 2026). The court forms the roof of the complex, bounded on its southern edge by a single frameless glass guardrail with views across the city to the ocean. Directly below the court is Club James, a working private nightclub with a concrete and stainless-steel bar, a stainless-steel dance floor, a 26-foot LED wall, sound and lighting controlled from a cantilevered stainless-steel DJ booth, and an operable glass facade facing the city. A back lounge, known as the VIP room, holds Goldstein’s collection of design and fashion books. His office occupies the southwest corner inside a canted frameless glass enclosure, organized around a cantilevered concrete desk, with built-in concrete and leather cabinetry holding basketball memorabilia. Below the offices, an outdoor terrace completed in 2023 holds cantilevered concrete dining tables, a full bar, a catering kitchen with a concrete and stainless-steel barbecue, a pool with a 100-foot infinity edge, and a triangular spa set behind an acrylic wall at the pool’s cantilevered western end (designboom, 2024).

Two further buildings are planned. A theater building on the east side of the tennis court will contain a 20-seat screening room, an entry beneath a frameless glass canopy, rooftop seating overlooking the court, and an elevator serving all four levels of the complex. A guest house downhill from the residence is designed in an angular flying-V form, with a glass roof carried on a triangular steel grid, a single suite, and an upper living space furnished with built-in concrete pieces. Lautner’s original master plan for the property survives as a wood and cardboard model that hangs in the house (designboom, 2024). The four-acre grounds are planted as tropical gardens and hold work by Ed Ruscha, DeWain Valentine, and Xavier Veilhan alongside the Turrell (Schneider, 2026).

The House on Screen

The residence is best known to film audiences as the home of Jackie Treehorn in The Big Lebowski (1998). It also appears in Star Time (1992), Bandits (2001), and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003), and on television in Southland, Snowfall, and Selling Sunset. Its music video credits include Snoop Dogg and Pharrell’s “Let’s Get Blown,” Nelly’s “The Fix,” and Doja Cat’s “Say So” (Sheats–Goldstein Residence, 2026). Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Mario Testino, and Ellen von Unwerth have each used the house as a backdrop for their photography (Schneider, 2026).

The Gift to LACMA

In 2016, Goldstein pledged the entire estate to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as a promised gift. The pledge covers the house and its gardens, the entertainment complex, Goldstein’s fashion collection, the Turrell Skyspace and the estate’s other artworks, the architectural models of the property, and a 1961 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud (Schneider, 2026). Goldstein continues to live in the house and to develop the lower terrace, the home theater, and the guest house with Conner and Perry, with the stated aim of keeping the property accessible to the public after it passes to the museum (AIA Los Angeles, 2026).

References

AIA Los Angeles. (2026, May 17). Arch Tour Fest: The Sheats-Goldstein Residence and Club James (2026) – Tour 1. https://www.aialosangeles.org/event/arch-tour-fest-sheats-goldstein-2026-tour-1/

Architectuul. (n.d.). Sheats Goldstein Residence. https://architectuul.com/architecture/sheats-goldstein-residence

designboom. (2024, June 21). Progress unveiled for entertainment complex at John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein Residence. https://www.designboom.com/architecture/progress-entertainment-complex-john-lautner-sheats-goldstein-residence-los-angeles-06-21-2024/

John Lautner Foundation. (n.d.). Biography of John Lautner. https://www.johnlautner.org/wp/?p=33

L.A. Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. (2026). L.A. Forum 2026: Sheats-Goldstein. https://www.laforum.org/events/sheats_goldstein

Los Angeles Conservancy. (n.d.). John Lautner. https://www.laconservancy.org/architects/john-lautner

Schneider, A. (2026, July 14). This house is officially a work of art. Unframed. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. https://unframed.lacma.org/2026/07/15/house-officially-work-art

Sheats–Goldstein Residence. (2026, September 24). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheats%E2%80%93Goldstein_Residence

SoCalPulse. (2020, October 1). Inside John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein house. https://socalpulse.com/los-angeles/inside-john-lautners-sheats-goldstein-house/

SURFACE. (2017, March 27). How the mansion from “The Big Lebowski” wound up in LACMA’s collection. https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/sheats-goldstein-residence-lacma/