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C ontemporary" is a loose term to throw around architecturally, with the potential to describe anything from a spartan-like box of a home to a bona fide sculpture in space, the latter which nicely describes the Caverhill Residence. Even prior to taking a peek, a cue to the home's pedigree is signaled via its representation by Crosby Doe, who in the architecture world is akin to a Larry Gagosian or a Hans Ulrich Obrist—a curator and dealer of the finest canvases around. Doe's firm transacts works by master architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, along with contemporaries such as Frank Gehry and, in this case, Zoltan Pali, whose project roster includes the Getty Villa and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. "I didn't know what to expect," says Doe, recounting the time he was first introduced to the four-bedroom residence, completed in 2008 and nearly 5,000 square feet in all. "I know Zoltan has a good body of work, and is a very conscious architect. But I wasn't prepared for the resolution of the house, where every side of the house was completely resolved as sculpture. Inside and outside it makes a statement that's quite unique." F R O M T H E M O U N TA I N S TO T H E O C E A N Whether traveling from Mulholland, just north of the home, or Sunset Boulevard, a 10-minute drive south, it's a curvy but likable path of upscale residential streets that leads to the Caverhill Residence, which is nestled meticulously atop a tree-flanked ridge, the highest one, on a private drive just above Trousdale Estates. Driving up to the address one is met by the gently curvilinear home that stretches along the street, striking for its elegant mass and a series of fins that have been moulded along its exterior wall. On a practical level, the fins function to control the amount of light that enters the home and ensures privacy, and Pali utilized an innovative mix of materials to construct. "The fins are actually made out of an MDF-product called Extira," notes the architect. "[They were] built by cabinet makers and then painted with a quality, car-type paint." But it's the home's stark-white angles that strike the greatest visual contrast, interrupting the blue skies and green trees that surround it. And its shape, a defining feature of the home, comes from the architect and his team re-working the project's most challenging aspect—siting—into a home run. Pali describes the lot as a "very steep site with a slope that was angled to the street." His solution? Span the home wide across the lengthy frontage, then dip deep into the hillside on the back end, giving it what Pali describes as a "wedge shape." Not a bad idea, since the property is home to dramatic, only-in-LA views, from glowing mountain ridges and the pointed spires of downtown skyscrapers, to swaths of sparkling ocean just beyond the Westside cities—views that Pali's design capitalizes and celebrates. S W E E T D I G S