Inside Silvertop
John Lautner's concrete masterpiece took nearly two decades to complete. It changed what residential architecture in Los Angeles could be.
Silvertop is the house John Lautner finally figured out concrete on. Commissioned in 1956 by industrialist and engineer Kenneth Reiner for a 1.26-acre hilltop site above Silver Lake Reservoir at 2138 Micheltorena Street, the residence was largely completed in 1963 after roughly seven years of construction. It represents Lautner's first major use of monolithic concrete as a sculptural rather than purely structural element, and the lessons he learned here would define the rest of his career through later works including the Sheats-Goldstein Residence and the Arango House in Acapulco.
The home is approximately 4,721 square feet on 1.26 acres. Its signature elements are a sweeping arched concrete roof over floor-to-ceiling glass, one of the first residential cantilevered infinity-edge swimming pools ever built, a circular detached guest house known as the Round House, and a four-inch-thick cantilevered concrete driveway suspended without supporting columns. Silvertop is not a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, though it has received some of the highest preservation honors in the city: a 2018 Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award, an AIA Los Angeles Merit Award for Adaptive Reuse, and a Residential Design Award of Excellence from Docomomo US. It is a private residence and is not open for public tours.
Debbie Pisaro covers Silvertop the way she covers other architecturally significant homes across Los Angeles: as a building first, an asset second. The architectural pedigree, the construction history, and the design choices Lautner made here are what give the home its place in the canon. The market value flows from the architecture, not the other way around.
The house that took two decades to build
In 1956, Kenneth Reiner commissioned John Lautner to design a home on a 1.26-acre hilltop site above Silver Lake Reservoir. What Lautner proposed was radical even by his standards: a massive arched concrete roof that would cantilever over walls of glass, opening the interior to panoramic views in every direction. The concrete would not be merely structural. It would be sculptural, shaping the entire experience of moving through the house.
Construction began in 1957 and almost immediately ran into the kind of challenges that define Lautner's career. The cantilevered driveway, just four inches of concrete suspended without any supporting columns, was so audacious that the city's building inspector refused to approve it. Lautner's response was characteristically defiant. He ordered a static load test. The driveway held the weight of three fire trucks.
There is a footnote to that load test worth knowing. By getting the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety to accept load testing as a method of proving structural integrity, Reiner indirectly helped save the Watts Towers from demolition. The towers, Simon Rodia's masterwork in South Los Angeles, faced a teardown order until a load test demonstrated they were structurally sound. The precedent set in Silver Lake protected one of the most important works of folk architecture in the United States.
Reiner's finances, however, could not hold. He never lived in the house. Construction stalled, and after a foreclosure in 1970, the property sat unfinished until Dr. Philip and Jacklyn Burchill acquired it in 1974. The Burchills hired Lautner himself as a consultant to finish the home to his original specifications, and they moved in in 1976. They lived in Silvertop for four decades, making theirs one of the longest single-owner occupancies of a significant Lautner residence.
What makes Silvertop architecturally significant
Silvertop matters because it is the project where Lautner figured out what concrete could do. Before Silvertop, he was already pushing boundaries. But this was his first large-scale residential use of monolithic concrete as an expressive material rather than a hidden structural one. The vocabulary he developed here, sculpted concrete shells, cantilevers without precedent, and the dissolution of the wall between interior and landscape, would become the language of his most famous later projects.
The arched concrete roof
The roof sweeps over the main living space like a wave frozen mid-break, creating a dramatic canopy that simultaneously shelters and opens the interior to the landscape. The curve is not decorative. It is structural, distributing the load across the span without interior columns and freeing the entire perimeter for glass. Lautner used pre-stressed concrete that spans approximately 80 feet, echoing the contours of the surrounding hillside.
Floor-to-ceiling glass walls
Beneath the concrete shell, the house is almost entirely transparent. From inside, the boundaries between interior and exterior dissolve. The view includes Silver Lake Reservoir directly below, the hills in every direction, and on clear days, glimpses of the Pacific. Lautner integrated a retractable glass wall that opens the living room to the surrounding terraces, a mechanical detail that was decades ahead of its time when it was built.
The cantilevered infinity pool
One of the first residential infinity-edge pools ever built, the Silvertop pool wraps around the hillside and visually merges with the reservoir far below. Today this is a standard luxury feature on hillside estates throughout California. In 1963, it was unprecedented. The pool is structurally cantilevered, suspended over the slope without visible supports, an engineering accomplishment that goes largely unremarked because Lautner made it look effortless.
The Round House
A circular detached guest house on the property contains one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a photographer's darkroom. It is a complete architectural statement on its own. A satellite orbiting the main structure, sharing its material language but standing as an independent object in the landscape. The Round House is the kind of secondary structure that would be a portfolio centerpiece in any other architect's career. At Silvertop, it is the supporting act.
The cantilevered driveway
Four inches of concrete, no columns, engineered to hold three fire trucks. It is the first thing visitors experience arriving at Silvertop, and it announces immediately that the rules of conventional residential construction do not apply here.
The ownership history of Silvertop
Silvertop's ownership timeline is as layered as its architecture. The home has had only three owners in nearly seven decades. Each chapter reflects a different relationship to the building.
Kenneth Reiner (1956 to 1970). Reiner, the original commissioning client, was the ideal Lautner client. Technically sophisticated enough to appreciate the engineering and bold enough to fund the experiment. But the project's scope and timeline exhausted his resources, and the house went into foreclosure in 1970 with construction still incomplete. Reiner never lived in the home.
Dr. Philip and Jacklyn Burchill (1974 to 2014). The Burchills acquired Silvertop after years of the property sitting vacant. They hired Lautner himself in the early 1970s as a consultant to help finish the home to his original specifications, moved in in 1976, and raised three children there. They lived in Silvertop for four decades, an unusually long single-family ownership for a significant Lautner residence, and made the home the family seat that Reiner had envisioned but never realized.
Current owner (2014 to present). In 2014, Mrs. Burchill sold Silvertop for $8.55 million, then a record-high price for a Silver Lake home, in a competitive bidding process that closed approximately $1 million above the $7.5 million list price. The current owner, a longtime Silver Lake resident and music industry executive, then commissioned Bestor Architecture, led by Barbara Bestor, to undertake a meticulous two-and-a-half-year restoration. Interior design was led by Jamie Bush + Co. The team adhered to the vision of Reiner and Lautner, updating mechanical systems for the 21st century while preserving the architectural integrity of the original.
The restoration earned a 2018 Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award, an AIA Los Angeles Merit Award for Adaptive Reuse, and a Residential Design Award of Excellence from Docomomo US. For more on the architect who led the project, see Debbie Pisaro's profile of Barbara Bestor and her Los Angeles architectural practice.
An evening inside Silvertop
Debbie Pisaro has been inside Silvertop. What no photograph captures is how the architecture changes how the room sounds. The concrete shell holds voices the way a cello holds notes, low, full, slightly delayed at the far edges of the curve. You hear the house before you have finished looking at it.
Silvertop remains a private residence. It is not open for tours, not a venue, and not a public building. The owners are committed to the long-term stewardship of the home in the same spirit as the Burchills before them. The references in this piece are intended as architectural and historical context, not invitations.
Silvertop is classified by the Los Angeles Conservancy as "Private Residence — Do Not Disturb." The home is best viewed from East Silver Lake Boulevard across the reservoir, where the dramatic sweep of the concrete roof is most visible. Architecture enthusiasts respect the privacy of the residence by observing only from public vantage points.
Silvertop in popular culture
Silvertop has appeared in music videos, television commercials, and most notably in scenes from the 1987 film "Less Than Zero" starring Robert Downey Jr., Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, and James Spader. The home's cinematic quality, the dramatic concrete forms, the glass walls framing the city below, the pool that seems to pour into the sky, makes it a natural set piece for productions that want to communicate a certain kind of Los Angeles.
Across the decades since its completion, Silvertop has appeared regularly in architectural press worldwide. Architectural Digest, Wallpaper, Dezeen, Elle Decoration, and the major preservation publications. Its renown extends well beyond Los Angeles, but its physical presence remains rooted in the Silver Lake hills, visible from across the reservoir to anyone who knows where to look.
John Lautner's Los Angeles legacy
John Lautner trained under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin and moved to Los Angeles in 1939, where he spent the next five decades designing some of the most inventive residential architecture in the world. His Los Angeles residential portfolio includes Silvertop in Silver Lake, the Sheats-Goldstein Residence (1963) in Beverly Crest, the Chemosphere (1960) in the Hollywood Hills, the Garcia House (1962) on Mulholland Drive, the Harpel House (1956) in the Hollywood Hills, and the Derby House (1947) on Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz.
Among these, only the Harpel House carries a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument designation (HCM #896). Most significant Lautner homes are protected through other means: private ownership, preservation awards, and the cultural recognition that comes from being instantly recognizable in any architectural conversation about Los Angeles.
Lautner's influence runs through the architectural DNA of Los Angeles. His willingness to treat every home as a unique response to its site, the topography, the views, the light, is something visible in the best architectural homes across Silver Lake, Los Feliz, the Hollywood Hills, and Beverly Crest. When buyers describe wanting "architectural character," they are describing the tradition Lautner helped create. Debbie Pisaro tracks Lautner residences and other architecturally significant Los Angeles homes as part of the broader California architectural inventory she covers.
Frequently asked questions about Silvertop
Who designed Silvertop?
John Lautner, F.A.I.A., one of the most influential residential architects in Los Angeles history. Lautner trained under Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin before establishing his own practice in Los Angeles in 1939. Silvertop was commissioned in 1956 and largely completed in 1963.
Is Silvertop a Historic-Cultural Monument?
No. Silvertop is not designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. The home has received a 2018 Los Angeles Conservancy Preservation Award, an AIA Los Angeles Merit Award for Adaptive Reuse, and a Residential Design Award of Excellence from Docomomo US for the 2014 to 2017 restoration, but it does not carry an HCM number. Among Lautner's Los Angeles residences, the Harpel House (HCM #896) is the one with a formal city designation.
Can you visit Silvertop?
No. Silvertop is a private residence and is not open for public tours. The Los Angeles Conservancy classifies the home as "Private Residence — Do Not Disturb." The best public view is from East Silver Lake Boulevard, across the reservoir, where the curve of the concrete roof is visible against the hillside.
How much is Silvertop worth?
Silvertop most recently traded in 2014 at $8.55 million, then a record-high price for a Silver Lake home. Following a comprehensive multi-year restoration completed in 2017, the property's value has likely increased substantially. Architecturally significant Lautner residences are among the most sought-after properties in Los Angeles, and on the rare occasions they trade, they command pricing well above neighborhood comparables.
What is the Round House at Silvertop?
The Round House is a circular detached guest house on the Silvertop property containing one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen, and a photographer's darkroom. It was designed by Lautner as an integral part of the overall composition and shares the material language of the main residence while standing as an independent architectural object.
Who restored Silvertop?
The 2014 to 2017 restoration was led by architect Barbara Bestor of Bestor Architecture, with interiors by Jamie Bush + Co. The project team adhered to the original vision of Kenneth Reiner and John Lautner, updating mechanical and electrical systems for contemporary living while preserving the architectural integrity of the home. For more on the architect, read Debbie Pisaro's profile of Barbara Bestor and her Los Angeles practice.
What other Lautner homes are in Los Angeles?
Lautner's major Los Angeles residential works include the Sheats-Goldstein Residence (1963) in Beverly Crest, donated to LACMA in 2016; the Chemosphere (1960) in the Hollywood Hills; the Garcia House (1962) on Mulholland Drive; the Harpel House (1956), designated as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #896; and the Derby House (1947) on Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz, an early example of the concrete experimentation that would fully emerge at Silvertop.
Did Silvertop set a precedent for the Watts Towers?
Indirectly, yes. The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety initially refused to approve Silvertop's cantilevered driveway. Lautner ordered a static load test that demonstrated the four-inch concrete span could support the weight of three fire trucks. By establishing load testing as an accepted method of proving structural integrity in the City of Los Angeles, the Silvertop precedent later helped save Simon Rodia's Watts Towers from a demolition order, when those structures also passed a load test and were deemed safe.
About Debbie Pisaro. Debbie Pisaro (California DRE #01369110) is a luxury real estate agent and the founder of Coastline 840, an independent California brokerage. She specializes in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes across Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Studio City, branded residences, and significant California homes statewide. With 24 years of experience and recognition as an Inman Luxury Leader in 2025, Debbie helps clients navigate Los Angeles' architectural real estate market with insider knowledge and strategic guidance.