“I felt a creative spirit the first time I walked in this house. I liked the energy,” says Rina Welles, speaking of the 1921 Santa Monica residence that was once home to renowned German-born playwright Bertolt Brecht.
This house was where Brecht wrote “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” and other plays during the 1940s. Today, it is one component in a multigenerational family compound for Welles and her husband, David Golubchik, their children (Leah, 10, and Alek, 6) and her mother, Joanna.
The home, which has been renovated and enlarged with a new addition by Dub Studios, represents a success story in preserving cultural landmarks.
From the outset, the couple knew they wanted to keep the character of the Brecht house while adding a wing that would look and feel modern. They also wanted living quarters for Joanna.
But adding on to the rear of the two-story home would have devoured the substantial backyard, a feature that had drawn the couple to the house in the first place.
“We wanted openness,” says Golubchik, who was born in Kiev, Ukraine, but grew up in Santa Monica. “I fell in love with the property and wanted to encourage my kids to experience outdoor living, rather than indoor living.”
So after architect Gabriel Sandoval and principals Natalya Kashper and Michael Piper renovated the Brecht house, they worked with the landmark commission to design and build the addition alongside it. The new building stretches from the front of the 12,000-square-foot site, on space once occupied by the garage, to the back of the property. They call the addition “the Bar” because of its long, slender shape.
To cut down traffic noise inside the house, its front was designed without windows. It is covered in smooth plaster. Kashper says. “It is eventually going to be covered in a creeping fig, which will allow the Brecht house to shine.”
The addition uses a glass bridge on the second floor to connect to the Brecht house. “What is the most respectful way to add on to this beautiful home?” Kashper says. “We decided it would be the smallest architectural addition possible — a glass bridge connected to an existing window. It feels ceremonial to go between the two spaces.”
The original structure houses an office and a guest suite where Welles’ mother lives on the ground floor and a bedroom and lounge for the kids on the second. Welles, who remembers reading Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera” when she was living in Poland at age 10, says she maintained Brecht’s writing room, now her office, in the exact location described in his journals.
The addition houses the family’s living areas downstairs and the parents’ and Alek’s bedrooms upstairs. With bedrooms on the second floors of both homes, natural light and privacy are enjoyed by all.
“Designers like the idea that you can live upstairs,” Sandoval says. “It’s a concept of the lower floors being public and integrated with the landscape. The flow between the yard (and house) is very pronounced, but it’s nice to go upstairs to your more private spaces.” (The unit used by Welles’ mother has no direct connection to the new house, which affords her more privacy.)
Though the addition is understated in front, in back it is enlivened by glass walls that connect it to outdoor dining and living areas, lush landscaping and a pool. The floor-to-ceiling glass is a modern juxtaposition to the more traditional exterior of the Brecht house.
Inside the sun-filled first floor of the new home, the outdoors is always present. From here, the family can watch Leah swim or Alek pick blueberries in the garden.
Two years after breaking ground, the new compound is largely as envisioned — open, sunny and surprisingly quiet, deeply in unison with the outdoors.
Brecht himself did not feel connected to Los Angeles. He famously dismissed it as “Tahiti in the form of a big city.” But Welles says that the playwright’s house, which received a 2014 Preservation Award from the Santa Monica Conservancy in February, has enriched their family life.
“The house, the neighbors, Alek’s school — being a part of this community has made a difference in our lives,” she says.
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