“The idea of that element of color is to draw your eye up and through the opening,” says architect Barbara Bestor, describing the bright blue volume that rises playfully—like a tiny house on top of a house—from the second story of the residence she designed for a mother and son in the Venice neighborhood of L.A.

“I love the houses of Mexico City and the way Luis Barragán uses layering and bold, immersive color. That was a big inspiration.” With its otherwise dark gray exterior and simple rectilinear shape, the structure, set back from a high wood fence, has an inward-looking but idiosyncratic demeanor that sets it apart from other new construction in the area.

“What I like about Barbara is that she’s obviously very modern, but she’s also a little bit quirky,” says homeowner Melina Polly, cofounder with Michelle Pfeiffer of the fragrance company Henry Rose. “I wanted a modern aesthetic, but I didn’t want just another stark white box.”

The 1,847-square-foot home, which rises where a single-story cottage once stood, takes advantage of the relatively temperate Venice climate, calmed by breezes from the ocean. Bestor preserved the cottage’s front wall, which now encloses a patio around the entry and provides shade and privacy for the glass-walled living area.

Shop The Look

To add discrete uses to an otherwise open-plan ground floor, an oak-clad stairwell divides the corner library from the dining area. The library has one cedar-sided wall that extends into the front patio, and a window above the room’s daybed frames a view of a lush banana tree in the yard. Sliding glass doors in the dining area lead to a broad deck at the back with an outdoor shower.

Upstairs are three bedrooms—for Melina, her son, and guests—and two bathrooms, including a boldly patterned one for Melina, which is housed in that whimsical blue outcropping. A pair of balconies with orthogonal cutouts in the walls function almost as additional rooms.

“It’s meant to be a little reticent—not the biggest, baddest box on the block,” says Bestor.

“In the L.A. landscape that I operate in, what’s unusual about this project is trying to get that much action in a small footprint,” Bestor says. “Our goal was something that was delightful but compact and affordable—and also something that worked well with others on the street.”

Project Credits:

Architecture: Bestor Architecture / @bestorarchitecture

General Contracting: Ben Harrison

Structural Engineering: CW Howe / @cwhowe_engineering