Inside Richard Neutra’s 1949 Wirin House

Photograph by Chris Mottalini

Home improvement books often start with a caveat: “Don’t make big changes until you’ve lived in the house.” When the home is a midcentury gem by the legendary modernist Richard Neutra, that advice comes with teeth. “We have to be very careful,” says Alberto Chehebar of his residence, the 1949 Wirin House in Los Feliz, California.

His wife Jocelyne Katz puts it more bluntly: “The house owns us.” This sense of stewardship has been deepened by the recent fires in Los Angeles; many of the city’s other houses, threatened or lost, were built on similar hillside sites.