The late architect and his wife Shelly, who recently passed away at 96, built the Pacific Palisades home six decades ago
Architect Ray Kappe practiced his craft in Los Angeles for more than 65 years, co-founded Sci-Arc, one of the world’s most avant-garde architecture schools, and was presented a lifetime achievement award from the American Institute of Architects in 2006. Historians consider his work an extension of L.A. modern architecture begun in the 1920s by Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler.
Kappe Residence in Los Angeles in the 1960sCredit: Photo by Julius Shulman, © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
The homes that architects build for themselves are always captivating. Like something out of an M.C. Escher drawing or perhaps the movie Inception, Ray and Shelly Kappe’s house in Pacific Palisades appears to be everything everywhere all at once.
Kappe Residence in Los Angeles in the 1960sCredit: Photo by Julius Shulman, © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
The enormous, multistory showplace built throughout the 1960s is still a cutting edge, if vertiginous, composition of redwood and glass somehow floating over a creek. The remarkably preserved residence has never changed hands and is in remarkably original condition. The 4,000 square foot luxury residence was declared City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #623 in 1996 and now it can be yours.
Kappe Residence, 2026Credit: Photo by Mat Beard
“The Kappe Residence represents the apex of West Coast modernism,” says listing agent Ian Brooks of Berkshire Hathaway. The house is “a study in proportion, restraint and environmental intelligence. It does not compete with its surroundings; it orchestrates them. The result is architecture that feels inevitable, as though it could exist nowhere else.”
Kappe Residence, 2026Credit: Photo by Mat Beard
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Raymond Kappe was born in 1927, the son of Romanian immigrants. He came to Los Angeles during high school and attended UCLA before serving in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. He graudated from UC Berkeley in 1951 and opened his first office back in Los Angeles. He excelled in placing naturalistic buildings into difficult sites and making them look as if they belonged there. His work appeared in Arts & Architecture magazine and began earning awards.
Kappe Residence in Los Angeles in the 1960sCredit: Photo by Julius Shulman, © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)
“I’m very into the idea of regionalism, trying to make places more appropriate to their location,” Kappe once said. “People [in Southern California] are rather informal. We were attempting to be much more democratic and open after World War II, and L.A. exemplifies that.”
Kappe Residence, 2026Credit: Photo by Mat Beard
In 1962 he purchased an “unbuildable” lot in Rustic Canyon for $17,000 and began work on his masterpiece. Ray and Shelly, herself an academic who spent decades studying and writing about L.A. architecture, moved into the landmark by 1968 and lived there for the rest of their lives. Mrs. Kappe was 96 when she died last year. The Ray Kappe archive is housed at the Getty Research Institute.
Kappe Residence, 2026Credit: Photo by Mat Beard
“The Kappe residence is a living sculpture,” says Brooks. “Glass, timber and horizon merge into a singular spatial experience that feels both intellectually disciplined and emotionally liberating.”
Kappe Residence, 2026Credit: Photo by Mat Beard
Kappe house
Pacific Palisades
$11,500,000
Contact: Ian Brooks, Berkshire Hathaway