This unique architectural gem-a luxurious stone house in California’s Mojave Desert is on sale for the first time. Designbed by organic architect Kendrick Bangs Kellogg for owners Beverly and Jay Doolittle in March 1986, this California sci-fi-styled home is now on the market for $3 million. It was completed in 1993 and served as their home since then. The Doolittle home is heavy, anchored against sweeping desert sands. It is a 4,643 square foot space with 26 columns that fan out of its rooflines like wings. Its sturdiness was successfully tested back in 1992, during the Landers earthquake.
The interior of the home, designed by John Vugrin, is equally spectacular. There are a variety of objects and handmade items in the house. The flooring is made of natural stone which resembles a walkway that belongs outside of the house, leading in. In the small dining room, there is a kind of glass parasol over the room, made 800 pieces of sandblasted glass. The perimeter fence is also a work of art, consisting of vertical strips of steel with dangerous-looking scalloped edges.
The Doolittles who lived in a nearby home during constaction say they are selling because they’re getting older. “It’s getting harder getting up and down the steps.” Doolittle says not everyone will be able to appreciate the house. “Yet the house, much of which is finished in natural, local stone and stone aggregate, feels like an extension of the desert, and vice versa,” he adds. “This strong sense of landscape makes the house accessible and easy to understand. If some Native Americans from 500 years ago showed up here,” says the owner, “they would feel right at home.”
