A 1940s cinderblock style beach house stood for nearly a half century on Rancho Palos Verdes’ Lunada Pointe. The property occupied one of the 16,000 acres formerly owned by the community’s founders, the Vanderlip family, and its last use was as the familial home of the esteemed Ernest V. and Marguerite Berry. According to local lore, the Berry residence had undergone a multitude of additions resulting in it’s taking on a long “boomerang” shaped design.
In 1991, Georgene McKim and Jim LaBarba purchased property and spent the next six years constructing a home with over 12,000 square feet of living space, replete with 1,000 rose bushes, 300 merlot grape plantings and a 180 degree panoramic ocean view. The home was built to house hundreds of art objects and paintings, its architecture itself an assemblege of sorts, with myriad details — from a lush allegorical ceiling mural in its great room to its ornate Chimera stair railings — meant to mirror the work of architects, artists, and sculptors the couple saw during their extensive travels.
“We worked our butts off for 30 years in the garment industry,” La Barba said. “We decided we were going to travel. These are all the things we have collected over our life’s journey.”
Many of these features were painstakingly built into the house, such as the three dimensional ornamental fish created in custom molds and affixed with other adornments to the interior doors.
This is just the beginning of what is striking upon entering this 5 bedroom and 10 bathroom villa, with expansive oak and travertine flooring laid throughout by craftsmen and designed in the a style favored in homes the couple saw in their travels to the Bordeaux region of France.
The home was completed in 1997, its design reminiscent of the Palladian style of architecture not often seen on the the Peninsula. The Palladian style is a tribute to the prominent Venetian Renaissance architect, Andrea Palladio, and is based upon the symmetry of the classical temple architecture and the values of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The sheer perfection of light emanating from the center stage living room skylight is no accident, McKim said, but orchestrated in true Palladian style, maximizing symmetry with light. The famed Monticello home of Thomas Jefferson is said to have also been of the Palladian style.
It was Jefferson who once said, “Architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling down, one of my favorite amusements,” sentiments shared by Villa LaBarba’s owners. The home was designed by architect George Shaw, who executed McKim and LaBarba’s vision. Their travels inform every detail of the house, a living study of classical architecture combined with English Manor appurtenances. This approach is most clearly illustrated in the kitchen where there is a mezzanine butler’s pantry/plate room above the kitchen that is open and viewable, a basement wine cellar below, and all three levels connected by a dumb waiter. McKim said the idea came from the couple’s tours of manor houses.
“We would find architecture such as this, where they had whole rooms dedicated to china and sterling storage,” she said.
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The stately Villa sits on Palos Verdes Drive West. Its frontage consists of mature landscaping, a wrought iron car gate and a circular driveway flanked by two ancient olive trees that were preserved from the original site. This is a significant feature, as the olive tree motif is artfully carried through in the intricate floor mosaics inside the home.
Just past the entry landing are rows of columns along hallways that lead to the living room, or great room (the capitals on these columns, McKim noted, are intricately detailed in the Scamozi-Corinthian hybrid style developed by Italian architect Vincent Scamozzi, whose work the couple admired on their travels).
Further inside the home’s great room is a Mercury/Medusa medallion floor mosaic comprised of over 15,000 individual pieces of stone. This great room looks up to a mezzanine of upper balconies and a soaring ceiling almost evangelical in proportion. Situated above all this are ceiling murals epitomizing the famous Allegory of Winds, a sensory fervor of color and dynamic energy. One can see “Baby Wind,” “Juvenile Wind,” “Adult Wind” and humorously, “The Dirty Old Man Wind,” all personified in a timeless Tiepolo representation.
McKim explains that the design of the great room was inspired by the Ringling Mansion in the Ca’D’Zan of Sarasota Florida, built by the family of the renowned Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Though art abounds at Villa LaBarba, there is also a practicality that pervades all facets of the home. An example is the villa’s doors and windows. LaBarba said that on a visit to the Biltmore Hotel in Santa Barbara, the couple were struck by its doors.
“Their doors didn’t stick, or show signs of wheather,” he said.
This is a common problem on the Peninsula, where wood framed doors and windows often warp due to the ocean air and require continual maintenance. Villa LaBarba features black, steel-framed French doors and windows made by Hope’s, the same manufacturer that constructed the doors and windows at the Biltmore, which also gives the home an additional level of security, durability and soundproofing, due to the heavier construction and weighted glass.
Off the great room is a cozy library and a grand dining room. A collaboration, and friendship, with Paul Dreibelbis of Moonlight Molds led to the installation of two magnificent coffered ceilings that grace these two rooms. The library’s neoclassical molded ceilings are the same as those inside the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel, while the ceiling in the dining room is gilded and stenciled to emulate Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Dreibelbis worked on both Ceasar’s and the Biltmore and was able to methodically replicate these fine works inside the Villa LaBarba.
The home’s dramatic, cliffside perch has long been used for photography.
“It’s been a chameleon for over 60 years, taking on many personae for film and still photographers,” McKim said.
The current house has been featured on the reality TV show “Millionaire’s Bachelor Mansion,” “The Mentalist” and “The Medium” (on which Villa LaBarbra was home to a murder scene showing a pool of cinematic blood). The house has also been featured in commercials and print ads for Ralph Lauren, Toyota and Faconable. Maria Sharapova was recently photographed at the home for Russian Vogue.
It’s not hard to see why the Villa LaBarba draws such attention. With its grand oceanic setting and intricate, endlessly thoughtful design, the heart of this home slowly reveals itself, much like the secret, hidden door that connects its library to the bar. Villa LaBarba is steeped in the history of architecture but built very much as a celebration of the owners lives.
