On the outside of the house Harris made an event out of the splices in the pergola fascias. Believing that what connot be concealed should be turned into a feature, he multiplied the number of splices and inserted a twelve-by- twelve-by-four-inch block in each. Highly visible and regualrly spaced as they are, they become a part of the rhythmic pattern of the house. The two-story arrangement, which rises above a garage facing the street, is covered with boards and battens. Entrance comes at the far side of either of two bridges that connect the house to a staircase leading upward alongside a stream. Because ‘everything,’ Harris said, ‘was to take your mind off the long path to the door,’ he created not a continuous path but rather a ‘dotted line’ leading to the entrance. The lower bridge connects to the room of the Johnson’s son and his private balcony; the upper leads into the public area of the house and beyond to the living room and its floor-to-ceiling window. Above the window, the skeletal framework of the roof continues outward in the form of open rafters to frame an image of the Johnson house that evokes the east wing façade of Greene and Greene’s Blacker house in Pasadena.

Written by  George Monkhouse.

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