JOIN USHow did a middle-class kid turn into one of the most sought-after architects in US? Steven Kurutz traces the life of Richard Landry, an architect known for his magnanimous designs.
Sometimes Richard Landry can’t believe how well his life and career have turned out. After all, what if he had stayed in Quebec and accepted the teaching job he was offered after architecture school? What if Alberta hadn’t hit a recession, prompting him to leave the small commercial firm where he spent his early professional years and strike out for Los Angeles, a city he chose based on the climate and the fact that it was 1984 and everyone was talking about the Summer Olympics? And what if, when he arrived in town a stranger and began looking up architects in the phone book, Frank Gehry had returned his call?
Frank did not return Richard’s call. Instead, he was hired at the firm R Duell & Associates, which specialised in designing theme parks like Magic Mountain, a job he described as “pure fun, pure fantasy.” Bright and eager to please, he went on to work for a small firm doing residential projects in a new gated community called Beverly Park that overlooks Beverly Hills. Then a treeless bowl of dirt, Beverly Park would come to epitomise the sealed-off, rich person’s bubble in a city full of them, a smog-free haven for private-equity billionaires, superstar athletes and Sylvester Stallone, a client.
The most sought-after
So when Richard shakes his head now and says, “I have a hard time when I reflect on it and ask, ‘How did I end up here?’” you can almost believe that it was fate that brought him west and gave him the temperament and skill set to design dream homes for an age of economic exuberance.
Thirty years after arriving with all of his possessions stuffed in his Honda, Richard, is one of the most sought-after high-end residential architects in Southern California and beyond. His clients are the super-rich, the super-famous and, frequently, both.
His homes would give feudal-age rulers property envy. There’s the 12,500-square-foot French-inspired home in Brentwood that he designed for Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, with what Architectural Digest described as an actual moat around it. The 28-bedroom, 32-bath, glass, steel and stone compound tumbling down a Bel-Air hillside was named the Robb Report’s Ultimate Home in 2011.
And the 30,000-square-foot European manor, with a basketball court and two jacuzzis, where actor Mark Wahlberg just took up residence in Beverly Park? “When he called me, he said, ‘Richard, I’ve been following you for years. I’m so glad now you can do my house,’” Richard said. “What a nice guy. We had so much fun.”Richard is something of a court architect for the hilltop fief, having
designed several homes in Beverly Park, including a sprawling villa currently owned by a handbag mogul and a 15,000-square-foot chateau once owned by Real Housewives star Lisa Vanderpump.
By servicing the prosperous, Richard has himself prospered. His firm, Landry Design Group, employs close to 50 people who work in an office building that he purchased last year and has dozens of projects in various stages around the globe. “I could retire today and be fine the rest of my life,” he said.
Of course, life isn’t a total cruise. Richard can no longer get replacement parts for his $1,00,000 electric-powered sports car, because the company that made it went bankrupt. More troubling is the criticism that has come with being the favoured architect of the one per cent. He has been called the “mansion architect,” the “king of the tasteless megamansion” and, as one online commenter dubbed him, a purveyor of the “gigamansion.”
The real estate blog Curbed has been his most relentless critic, calling Richard’s houses “unnecessarily over the top” and “ugly” and suggesting that “if the plebs knew more about what he was up to” it could “spark America’s populist revolution.”
The homes he designs are, indeed, overt displays of wealth, expressed in loggias and porte cochères; home theaters and double-height foyers; Italian marble and specially-aged, acid-washed limestone. Even the two books he published to showcase them are as thick as marble slabs.
But Richard who had a plebeian childhood as the son of a carpenter in rural Quebec, isn’t interested in class warfare. Whether the haves should practice self-restraint for the betterment of society is a matter for sociologists. “Is it right or wrong for somebody to build a big home?” he said. “I’m not the one to answer that question.”
All about the customer
Richard’s approach isn’t to tell his clients that a sustainable vegetable garden behind a ginormous house is a little ridiculous. Or to impose on them his singular vision, Frank Lloyd Wright-style. Above all, he wants to make them happy. To design homes suited to their individual needs and whims. “There are a million things I could do,” he said. “This is about you. Let’s talk about what you need.”
If the hedge fund you manage is bringing killer returns and you want an indoor pool for the five days a year in Southern California when it’s too chilly to swim in your outdoor pool, Richard will add it to the programme. If you and your much younger third wife had a special vacation in Italy and want to bring that old-world charm back to Calabasas, Richard will design a villa with a monastery’s worth of reclaimed wood. If the family sitcom you created was sold into syndication for big bucks and you’re all about having an in-home squash court, your architect has it covered: “I will start playing squash,” Richard said, laughing.Although Richard is known primarily for faux-European piles, he does not have a signature look or size. His firm has done plenty of gigantic chateaus of the Loire Valley, but also relatively modest Spanish-style beach homes, mid-century-inspired houses, vernacular barns, swooping modern dwellings, austere architecture and remodels of existing homes.
The people who call him king of the megamansion and focus on ballooning square footage aren’t aware of the full breadth of his work, Richard said. And the label is costing him: “Clients read this and think we only do mansions. They want a 5,000- or 10,000-square-foot house and think it’s too small. A 10,000-square-foot house is a big house.”
Asked what connects his diverse projects, Richard thought a moment. “There’s something, a sensibility in the house in terms of the quality, the details,” he said finally. “Because it’s not about the size. It’s not about whether it’s formal or casual or modern. I think there’s something about it you can’t put a finger on.”
Richard learned how to design for the special needs of the rich and famous. Two kitchens, one for family and one for staff. Large, open foyers with direct flow to give fundraiser crowds easy access to the backyard.
Wings that could be closed off, so that a large house becomes a series of smaller ones, inhabited by the owners, extended family and houseguests. And amenities like home theatres and spas that account for all that square footage – and, more important, make interaction with the public avoidable.
Some might say it’s isolating and disorienting for people to cocoon themselves. But to Richard, there are no rights or wrongs, only what the client wants. “Some of the celebrity clients we work with don’t have any privacy outside of their home,” he said. “So let them have a home theater or a bowling alley. It’s not about justifying that somebody needs a 30,000-square-foot home.” Or 40,000. Which is the size of the French country estate that represents the final, extra-large portion of the tour. The house has a mansard roof topped with what looks like an entire quarry of slate. It has a guesthouse larger than many Americans’ homes. And running between that guesthouse and the main residence is a full-on “old” cobblestone street, just like the ones in Europe.
Although Richard wants to make it clear that he isn’t the megamansion guy – that he does all styles and sizes – standing before this enormous house his eyes sparkled. “This is great,” he couldn’t help saying. Your eyes might sparkle too if you were an architect given some of the most prime land in the country, two acres atop the lush hills of west Los Angeles, and from thin air conjured a castle.
No doubt Richard’s critics would look at the place and find it lacking. And you know what? He agrees. “I honestly believe we haven’t done our best work yet,” Richard said, in his sports car, driving back to the office. “As an architect, I’m maturing with every project. Like a special wine that’s going to get better with age.”