L.A. artist transforms home and garage into | Real Estate news

Antonio Adriano Puleo didn’t intend to renovate his conventional 1946 bungalow in the Glassell Park neighborhood just north of Mt. Washington, but after consulting with architectural designer Ben Warwas, who told him he might remodel the home into a “forever home,” the artist modified his plans.

“I originally wanted an ADU,” Puleo said of including an accent dwelling unit to broaden the artwork studio in his garage. “For me, it was about having a bigger studio and being able to have collectors and curators come to the studio.”

However, as Warwas explored the two-bedroom home and nook property — the designer had beforehand designed and constructed a wooden deck in Puleo’s yard — he started to envision a new narrative for the areas.

The exterior of the home and ADU is now painted vibrant yellow. There’s also simple access to the outside.

“The living room wasn’t big enough, and it featured a huge red brick fireplace that had doors on either side of it, leading to the backyard,” said Warwas, who first met Puleo when they had been undergraduate college students at Massachusetts College of Art (now called Massachusetts College of Art and Design). “To access the outdoors, you had to walk down concrete steps to a covered patio.”

Paired with a third door off the kitchen, the home’s entrance to the yard was awkward at best.

After touring the property, Warwas proposed some delicate adjustments: including a 250-square-foot ADU to the garage, eradicating the hearth and raising the ceiling peak in the lounge; including a loft bed room in the attic; and redesigning the outside of the home.

The entrance of the 1946 home stays the same.

“It was a small project, but there were a lot of issues with the house,” Warwas said. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I propose four different things and he can choose two or three of them?’ He chose all four.”

Puleo, 49, bought the bungalow in 2010 for $387,500 after seeing an advert for a two-bedroom home “priced well for a quick sale” in Glassell Park. Although only 1,000 sq. toes in dimension, the home supplied a yard for his canine and a indifferent garage.

“The garage was really the draw,” Puleo said. “The thing about the house that attracted me is that it had a space that could be a studio.”

The front room of Puleo’s Glassell Park home before it was redone.

(Ben Warwas)

Puleo, standing, and Warwas in the lounge today. “We both have a love of design,” Puleo said of his longtime pal.

Shortly after buying the home, Puleo renovated the kitchen and lavatory, opened up the wall between the 2 areas and widened the kitchen door. “There were so many doors,” he said of the compartmentalized ground plan. “Doors in the kitchen; doors in the dining room.”

Still, it wasn’t simple to attain the garage, which housed his artwork studio, and the adjoining laundry room. “I was always frustrated with the house because it was not maximizing space efficiently,” Puleo said. “The studio was detached, and we had to enter through a gate.”

And so the makeover started.

Warwas tore out the hearth and prolonged the lounge by six toes, including a smooth Fleetwood sliding door that supplied prompt access to the yard. Then, he raised the ceiling of the lounge and added a sculptural curve that fully reworked the residing space.

Because the home had a complicated roof and an accessible attic, Warwas then reworked the attic into a loft that Puleo makes use of as his main bed room. (The two bedrooms on the first ground are used as a den and a gallery space/visitor room.) Thanks to the high ceilings and a new skylight, the attic now floods the middle of the lounge below with natural gentle.

Puleo’s patterned canvases grasp in the ADU.

The ADU, which is hooked up to the garage, and just six inches from the main home, options a kitchen, lavatory and residing space. Puleo is utilizing it as half of his artwork studio.

“Little tweaks totally transformed the house,” Warwas said.

In the garage, Warwas designed an ADU that can perform as an artwork studio or rental, that includes a small kitchen, lavatory and enough room for a mattress. The design of the ADU was rigorously thought of to maximize space and gentle, with a skylight and high window flooding the space with gentle.

A degree shift provides a dramatic expertise when you step into the ADU, as the ground drops below to the artwork studio and the ceiling goes up, creating a sense of spaciousness.

Puleo selected vibrant blue tiles from Daltile for the bathe of the ADU.

The front room of the main home is now open and ethereal, with customized cupboards and millwork by James Melinat that showcase the art work Puleo made himself and the items he has collected for more than 30 years, including ceramic pendants by Torbjörn Vejvi and Courtney Duncan, vessels by Bari Ziperstein and Pilar Wiley, and work by Patricia Fernández and Steven Criqui.

The front room’s hearth is gone, but the wood mantle stays atop a console behind the couch, graced with a collection of colourful ceramic planters by Ashley Campbell and Brian Porray of Happy Hour Ceramics.

“Ben and I have known each other since we were in college,” Puleo said, emphasizing their long-standing relationship and the collaborative nature of their course of. “The fun thing about the project is that we did a lot of back and forth in terms of communicating shapes and forms. We both have a love of design, and Ben does a great job of using traditional materials in a way that ignites them and increases the dynamics of a space.”

Puleo’s artwork studio, a former garage, rests a few steps below the new ADU.

On a latest go to, Warwas was still fine-tuning home enchancment prospects. “You could put a stackable washer and dryer here,” he steered to Puleo as they stood in the hallway. (Puleo had moved the home equipment from the laundry room in the garage to the basement of the main home.)

Similarly, Warwas appreciates Puelo’s curatorial abilities. “He’s made his home so personal,” Warwas said of his pal, who, for the last 12 months, has featured the works of local artists in one of the downstairs bedrooms, which served as an artwork gallery.

“It’s an amazing house,” Warwas said of the interiors, that are enhanced by the artworks and make guests really feel linked to the space.

“People often take notes when they come to visit,” Puleo said of his artwork assortment.

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1. Designer Ben Warwas stands inside the 250-square foot ADU, which options a tall window and a skylight. 2. In the previous garage, stairs from the artwork studio lead up to the ADU and lavatory. (Lisa Boone / Los Angeles Times )

From the sidewalk, the standard stucco bungalow appears to be like like so many others in the neighborhood. But step into the yard, past the colourful work, textiles, tiles, stained glass and ceramics and the new rear exterior — painted a vibrant yellow — and it’s like a fully different property.

“The front of the house didn’t change, and the back of the house is totally different,” Warwas said of the outside, which reminds him of a piece of paper that has been cut up and folded together. “It’s a fun moment.”

That he was ready to completely remodel the home without including a lot sq. footage doesn’t escape him. “It creates a landscape where you can travel back and forth, and the garden is now much more a part of the house,” Warwas said. “The yard got smaller, but it feels bigger.”

A stained-glass panel by Puleo hangs in the lavatory.

Mixed-media items by Megan Reed are on show in Puleo’s bed room artwork gallery.

Despite a $95,000 ADU addition ultimately growing into a $320,000 overhaul for the property, Puleo is pleased to have the pliability that comes with residing in a home with two separate areas.

“I could add a lofted bed and live in the ADU and make art and rent out the house if I wanted,” Puleo said. “It would allow me to go back and forth between the East and West coasts and teach and be with my family in Boston.”

As he sat taking it all in from his eating room desk overlooking the San Gabriel Mountains, the artist said, “The house is super efficient now. This is a magical space.”

Puleo also selected colourful textiles for his canine Ono’s mattress.