Building a Custom Home on a Tract Site

The beginning of a journey down a successful road for Gordon Gibson, president of Gordon Gibson Construction in Santa Monica, Calif., started as a laborer, then a carpenter, framer and now a custom builder of high-end homes in Southern California. He travels extensively, which grounds his sense of architectural appreciation.

Gibson’s travels have taken him to more than 75 different countries. Design inspiration is not his intention when traveling but he adds it’s a great benefit. “Traveling gives me firsthand knowledge of true architecture for the custom home industry. When I travel to Greece and see the Parthenon or Rome, or Turkey, I see real architectural designs — how it came to be influenced by previous generations and how it moves forward to current architecture,” he says.

Custom home building was not always Gibson’s niche. However, he has been focused on this part of the industry for 30 years. “[Transferring to custom] is an outgrowth — a transformation of a goal to do better and more significant work,” Gibson adds.

As he begins each project, he finds it’s a challenge to deal with new architecture and new owners because it’s an emotional process for homeowners to build a large custom home. “It’s a challenge to work with the emotions of clients. Because they become emotionally involved, you become emotionally involved in them and trying to create their own personal masterpiece,” he says.

Demands of the site

The home pictured on these pages is located in Bel Air Estates, Calif., and features a Mediterranean style. Gibson adds that this style results from a metamorphosis of different types of architecture and might include some Roman, Spanish or Greek influences.

Gibson collaborated with J. Scott Carter, owner and architect of Wilie Carter Architects in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and interior designer Malgosia Midgal, owner of Malgosia Midgal Design Associates in Beverly Hills, Calif. All three worked closely together to create solutions for the challenges they faced when working on the project.

The lot was one challenge that presented itself from the beginning. “[The house] is located on a tracked lot amongst a group of houses that are already developed. A spec builder had secured several parcels of land and had built a house next to this site with intentions of repeating the same house on this lot. Our owners weren’t happy with the layout of that plan,” Carter says.

Carter worked closely with the homeowner to make changes to the original floor plan so it met their needs and desires. “They wanted a change of scale. A lot of the homes in this particular area are the classic McMansions. We worked hard to break that scale down and give a bit more character to the house. We played a lot with low plate lines. The entire second floor has 7-ft.-high plate lines which is a bit unusual but allowed us to drop the roof line relatively low,” Carter says.

A height limit restricted the roof and elevations on the house. “We had to ensure the people behind the house and up above could still see their views. This required a specific envelope that we had to fit the house into,” Carter says.

Because the lot was for production housing, it was cut flat and fell off down a hill. “We ended up developing a house that went over the side of the hill and stepped down below — it maximized the use of the property,” Carter says.

The construction and design of the project started at the bottom of the hill and worked back toward the top. “We had to start at the bottom of the hill, build retaining walls and work back toward the upper elevation,” Gibson says. “We put in a subterranean entertainment room and continued up the slope. We put in a sunken pool into the side of the entertainment room.”