DIGS is the premiere luxury real estate lifestyle magazine serving the most affluent neighborhoods in the South Bay and Westside of Los Angeles, California.
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22 DIGS.NET 1.19.2018 Built in homage to the storied Italian ci, the Venice of Southern California offers whiffs of the European town's magic. Consider its winding walk streets, mesmerizing boutiques, convivial restaurants and the picturesque beau of its canals. Within easy proximi to the industrial parks of Silicon Beach and the film studios of Culver Ci, it's a unique neighborhood that's managed to retain the laidback feel of a coastal town. Here, where bikers and skateboarders are plentiful and it seems nearly everyone has a dog, "dressed up" means changing into understated designer denim. Created as a breezy seaside enclave offering a retreat from the hot ci, many of Venice's slender lots still support their original Crasman homes. In fact, 748 Palms was grown from one such bungalow. Aer a few years of renting the small house, its now owner John Gunn had fallen in love with the area. So he purchased the land and decided to remodel the space. "I lived in it for two years before I bought it and made any changes, so I had a lot of time to dream," remembers Gunn, who, with his intimate knowledge of the proper, began renovations on the place, incorporating the home's original footprint into his new design, rather than tear down the building and start over. "If I'd demolished the whole thing and started from scratch, it would have been a very different house. It would have been more like what you see all over, basically a big box oriented to the street with a courard on the side and a garage in the back." e street-side courard, front two bedrooms, den and kitchen reveal the extent of the former home. "It was a pret small house on what, for Venice, is a pret big lot," adds Gunn. "e backyard was huge and it had a cut-in curb, which means it had off-street parking in the front, a very coveted ameni in this part of town." Tongue-and-groove ceilings and well- proportioned rooms are among the other charms that factored into his decision to weave the old space into the new structure. e addition, meanwhile, consists of a second story master suite, a great room that opens on two sides to the backyard, a pool and a renovated two story lo-sle garage conversion with a separate bath and a kitchen that can serve as an extra bedroom, a stand- alone guest home, an art studio, a writing den, or pool house. With its polished concrete floors and 10-foot ceilings on the first floor, as well as plen of off-site parking (there's room for two cars in the front; one in back), the home's amenities rival those seen in larger houses. It is a clear example of a space that magnifies the impact of every design choice to its maximum advantage. The soothing sounds of water add a musical note to each room. "The thought was to have each of the rooms open onto a beautiful landscape that included a water feature," offers Gunn. But this important yet minute detail, which subtly insulates the home from the outside world, pales in the face of the home's wow factor: the main living room. Seamlessly integrated with the back yard and generous pool area, it 's a stellar study in indoor-outdoor living in Los A ngeles. "I wanted to create some drama and some glamour," says Gunn. "I wanted these soaring spaces with lots of life. And I wanted a certain B