Crisp edges, clean lines, and best planes. Houses where sweeping surface areas liquify into breathtaking vistas. Set down high above Beverly Hills– where the Los Angeles grid fades into canyon shadows and city lights– Trousdale Estates remains one of Southern California’s many undamaged concentrations of Mid-Century Modern architecture. Developed start in 1954 by Paul Trousdale, the community rapidly drew Hollywood’s elite and the designers shaping postwar California modernism. Homes here were developed as horizontal compositions: single-story structures extending across the hillsides, their flat roofs, glass stretches, and restrained geometries framing extensive views rather than competing with them.
It was within this storied enclave that Studio OSKLO founders Arya and Michael Martin discovered what they immediately recognized as an unusual architectural specimen: a 1966 post-and-beam house by Benton & Parks.”Upon first seeing the house, we were consumed,”the set remembers. “It was one of the most pedigree specimens of mid-century architecture we had seen in our work or journeys.” For the couple– collectors, designers, and longtime advocates of style history– the objective was never reinvention. Rather, the project became an act of stewardship: protecting
the architectural pedigree of the original structure while introducing a modern layer reflective of their developing work through OSKLO. Spanning roughly 6,000 square feet on a single level, the house unfolds through a series of yards and long sightlines. Its plan resembles two inverted U-shapes: one framing the entry courtyard and Japanese-inspired atrium, the other twisting around an angular pool and garden oriented toward the Santa Monica Mountains and the distant radiance of Century City. A corridor along the atrium links 3 guest suites to the main bed room, while an additional bed room sits near the cooking area together with a pool bath and outside cabana. Yards, glass corridors, and open landscapes form the core of Trousdale’s architectural DNA. Area guidelines famously required homes to remain single-story to preserve views, creating houses that balance remarkable scale with horizontal restraint. The OSKLO home continues that family tree through its exposed structural steel façade, expansive glazing, and a striking circular standing-seam glass wall in the main bedroom overlooking the pool.< img src="https://design-milk.com/images/2026/03/Studio-OSKLO-Trousdale-Estate-Residence-Loma-Vista-10-810x1013.jpg" alt="A modern-day OSKLO dining room with a dark wooden table, rust-colored chairs, a big abstract painting, and a striking black chandelier."width=" 810"height=" 1013"/ > Remarkably intact– having gone through just one restoration because the 1960s– the home invited a remediation assisted by both respect and interest. Initial stonework was
protected any place possible, while new details were modeled on duration precedents discovered throughout the area. Sculptural urns flank the entry gates, and custom ironwork echoes ornamental components still visible along Trousdale’s winding streets. Material choices reinforce the dialogue in between previous and present. An unfilled silver travertine wall and pillars frame the technique to the atrium, while restored walnut doors are fitted with Paul Evans Brutalist pulls that lend the exterior tactile weight. Inside, visitors come across the original piece limestone fireplace and a figurative sculpture striding across the south yard beyond the glass. Rather than adhering to a single stylistic doctrine, the interiors weave together a constellation of mid-century recommendations. Italian contemporary lighting from the 1960s hangs above the dining table, while the bar retains a definitely Hollywood Regency spirit. Millwork and stone vanities in the primary suite nod to British designer David Hicks, and somewhere else subtle echoes of Pierre Cardin, Achille Castiglioni, and Arne Jacobsen appear in custom-made screens and seating.< img src ="https://design-milk.com/images/2026/03/Studio-OSKLO-Trousdale-Estate-Residence-Loma-Vista-15-810x648.jpg
“alt =”A modern-day OSKLO bed room with a large bed, couch, potted plants, abstract wall art, and a window revealing an outside statue surrounded by greenery.”width =”810″height=”648 “/ > The palette progresses from the duration without becoming sentimental. Original saw-cut concrete floors remain, paired with lighter oak that softens the architecture’s structural rigor. Velvety whites and muted earth tones dominate, punctuated by darker plaster finishes in spaces like the television space and primary bed room. Fireplaces dressed in
limestone and travertine mirror the granite hues of the surrounding Hollywood Hills landscape.< img src ="https://design-milk.com/images/2026/03/Studio-OSKLO-Trousdale-Estate-Residence-Loma-Vista-17-810x621.jpg"alt="A neutral-toned OSKLO nursery with a crib, plush chair, wooden stool with a toy sheep, carpet, scattered building blocks, table, chairs, and toys set up near a curtained window."width ="810"height="621"/ > Outdoors, the Martins introduced one of the home’s most poetic gestures: a stylized Japanese garden inspired by their journeys. The main atrium is planted with imported grasses forming a moss-like carpet, punctuated by four sculptural bonsai pines. Seen all at once from the living room, dining area, and passage, the vibrant plant ends up being a visual anchor for the home’s blood circulation. Other interventions are more discreet. A retractable-canopy cabana forms a surprise outdoor lounge along the yard, total with a bar that appears to drift within the yard. Inside, an asymmetrical television space was recalibrated with a travertine partition fitted with rotating marble screens, hiding a compact library and workplace behind the media area.
Today the home functions as more than a house. It houses the first OSKLO House– an immersive style environment where the couple’s Studio OSKLO furnishings line lives together with antiques and artworks collected over years. Functions by Julian Schnabel, Ed Ruscha, Catherine Opie, and the Campana Brothers mingle with furnishings by Jean Royère, Adolf Loos, and Viggo Boesen, producing an interior landscape formed equally by personal history and architectural heritage.
For the Martins, this layered technique mirrors the principles behind their launching furnishings release, the Trousdale Collection. Influenced by the neighborhood’s cinematic architecture and its interaction of city views, seaside pines, and breaking down granite hillsides, the collection translates the home’s environment into sculptural types.
In many ways, the job shows the lesson embedded in Trousdale Estates itself: great architecture
is not something to overwrite, but something to continue. By protecting the bones of an exceptional mid-century structure while thoroughly extending its story, the OSKLO Home shows that architectural pedigree can stay not only undamaged– however clearly alive. To read more about the designers’ practice, go to osklo.com. Photography thanks to Douglas Friedman. With expert degrees in architecture and journalism, New York-based author Joseph has a desire to make living perfectly available. His work looks for to enhance the lives of others with visual communication and storytelling through style. When not composing, he teaches visual interaction, theory, and design.