Last year, Room to Improve's Dermot Bannon headed out to LA to visit jaw-dropping homes including a floating glass house on Laguna Beach; the iconic Jai House, a gold house deep in the Joshua Tree Desert and a house shaped like a wave. Yep, you read that right.
Missed it? You can catch Dermot Bannon's US Homes on repeat RTÉ One at 9:35pm tonight.
Along the way, Dermot meets Kilkenny natives James and John Corr who now build multi-million dollar housing developments and he takes in some L.A sights with the lads.
Jai House
Renowned Irish-American architect Lorcan O’Herlihy takes Dermot to the iconic Jai House. The property was built for bestselling authors Julie Piatt and Rich Roll. The house is a beautiful example of Lorcan’s work with its clean geometry, sensitivity to landscape and glass walls.
Julie is a yoga and meditation teacher, who has worked with The Happy Pear twins Dave and Steve Flynn. She shows Dermot around, cooks one of her best-selling plant-based recipes, and sings him one of her devotional chants.
Beach House
Next, Dermot visits a floating glass house with spectacular seascape views of Laguna Beach. With a private walkway leading down to the surf and disappearing glass walls, his home is a dream.
The property was designed by Irish architect Paul McClean who is well-known for creating trophy homes with unique features such as a garage where a hydraulic lift lowers a $2 million yellow McLaren down into an underground art gallery space. As you do.
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Gold House
Dermot strikes gold as he is granted access to the elusive Gold House. Architect and owner Robert Stone has been known to be incredibly picky when it comes to guests. He even turned down Rihanna's request to shoot a music video there! Apparently, Dermot trumps Rhianna in the architecture world.
The long, low building has huge mirrored overhangs, ornately wrought iron gates with thousands of metallic gold hearts and flowers. Inside, it’s all gold-mirrored ceiling and walls, with a mosaic tiled pool in the living room and a sunken back patio with a fire pit and barbecue.
Wave House
The Wave House is exactly what it says on the tin, a house that looks like a wave. Owner Mario Romano built the house himself, using computer technology to make over 300 white aluminium pieces fixed to a metal substructure, arranged to create the feeling of an ocean swell and crashing waves.
It is laid out in an angular U shape around a rectangular pool, and all rooms have glass walls that open onto the pool. Inside, the patterns on the walls and floors are taken directly from nature: tortoiseshell geometrics and stripes on windswept sand.
Dermot Bannon’s LA Homes was the final part of a two-part series which aired on Sunday, December 17 at 9.30pm on RTÉ One and you can catch up RTÉ One at 9:35pm tonight.
