Cruz Control

Half of the team that created the forward-looking, luxe Los Angeles design showroom Blackman Cruz did a lot of the shopping for his own home while he was at work.

Written by Susan Morgan • Photographed by Timothy Street-Porter
Produced By Linda O’Keeffe & Laura Hull

Photo: Timothy Street-Porter

"It was the view that sold me on this house," says David Cruz nonchalantly, revealing a hint of irreverent wit and his considerable knack for eschewing anything obvious. It's true that the Raymond Chandler-esque view is terrific—a panoramic Hollywood cityscape capped by a shimmering promise of distant sea—but the house itself is stunning. Designed by Hungarian émigré Paul Laszlo in the 1930s, it's an architectural gem, a Metropolis-influenced vision of International Style set precisely into Whitley Heights, a hillside community developed in the '20s for the silver screen elite.

Seven years ago, when Cruz—of Blackman Cruz, the Los Angeles emporium for incomparable furnishings and distinguished oddities— bought the Laszlo house with theater director Richard Hochberg, their first instinct was to knock down walls and create open-plan living spaces. "The rooms seemed so dinky," Cruz recalls, "and then an architect friend of mine said, 'This house is all about the little spaces.'" With that in mind, the homeowners rethought their scheme and opted to retain most of the original plan: a moderne rectangle of a footprint, a two-story stack of well-proportioned rooms with glass doors and oversized windows opening out to adjoining decks and framing the views.

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