This was my second trip to Bakersfield to see the 1937 Davis House by Richard Neutra. The first post is here.
This difference this time is that I got inside! The owner, David Coffey, was nice enough to invite me over.
David purchased the house from Swiss-born architect Frank Ghezzi, who actually studied under Neutra. The house is in amazing condition. It's been well taken care of over the years but still has the perfect amount of patina. Ghezzi, the previous owner, made a couple of minor additions to the original design. They are hard to spot, because--well he was a Swiss architect who studied under Neutra-- so of course he did a good job. Be that as it may, David said at some point he'd like to remove an addition on the rear section of the second floor master bedroom to regain an outdoor deck that was part of the original design. That's a good example the kind of guy David is. A person who would lose square footage to get back to the original design is exactly who should be owning this outstanding example of architecture by Neutra.
Source: Bakersfield Modern
1937 was the same year the Miller House in Palm Springs and the Strathmore Apartments in Los Angeles were also built.
Soffit overhang lighting on the front of the house.
Deck in front of the master bedroom
Master bedroom
David has a great collection of vintage Julius Shulman photos of his house.
This photo of Richard Neutra and his wife Dionne in the Davis's kitchen is now on display in David's kitchen.
The front door
The peephole
In addition to his home, David shared some other gems of great modern architecture in Bakersfield (he knows them all).