Los Angeles is not a city of seasons. At least not in the traditional sense. Here, the passage of time is measured in shifting light, the slow bend of jacaranda branches heavy with violet blooms, the way dry hills blush green after an elusive rain. In Montecito Heights, where the land rises in soft folds above the city’s eastern edge, a home designed by artist Pae White and architect Tom Marble brings these quiet transformations into sharp relief.
Nesting into a hill and backing onto the 250-acre Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, the single-story residence is immersed in one of LA’s least developed settings. At its core: a courtyard, a living canvas where the subtlest changes in season play out. Anchoring this open-air space are ginkgo trees, whose leaves emerge in silent increments each spring, then blaze into a radiant yellow spectacle come fall. When they drop, the courtyard floor glows gold. It is a performance both natural and choreographed.
For White—whose work can be found in major cities across the globe, including suspended installations at the San José Museum of Art and mesmerizing cordage spanning the Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX—these nuanced shifts in time and texture are familiar terrain. “The subtleties of time and seasons are something I’ve always explored in my work,” she explains. “We wanted the house to bring them to the forefront.”
The property has, at times, doubled as White’s studio— the flexible layout perfectly suited for the all-hours laboring that fuels her art. “It doesn’t feel like work,” she says, describing how creativity can strike at midnight or noon, with no separation between living and making. Original pieces—some borrowed from her large-scale installations—have adorned the walls. Such displays, paired with polished concrete and a lack of trimwork, lend the interior a gallery-like atmosphere.
Yet the home is just as much a showcase of architectural ingenuity as it is a testament to artistic expression. Marble, who studies architecture in natural contexts, rejected traditional corridors. Instead, rooms drift along the courtyard and open to the outdoors. “We eliminated the need for halls,” Marble says. “You can move freely, or close doors for privacy, but you’re always aware of the courtyard at the core.”
The living room, anchored by a brick fireplace, opens onto a patio that frames a sweeping view southeast all the way to Saddleback Mountain in Orange County. Intersecting angles create deliberate sightlines, yet the flow remains breezy and unencumbered.
Outside, aluminum siding that mirrors the changing sky cloaks a low-profile silhouette, nearly camouflaging the home in the surrounding greenery. Yet one vivid gesture makes it impossible to overlook: a shocking band of electric yellow framing the front façade. Elsewhere, a trio of chandeliers in peach, black and bright red hover in the dining room, subtly echoing White’s flair for bold color.
Approached by a gravel driveway, the property’s left flank shelters a small orchard and pockets of native plantings. Ascending, the hillside unfolds as a series of outdoor rooms—hardscaped terraces, then a shaded lawn and grotto. Farther up the garden, a private keyed gate unlocks direct access to acres of protected parkland.
And so it is that, season by season, this home reveals new wonders and creative inspirations. Winter nights fill the air with jasmine, say White and Marble. Spring brings a lush wisteria canopy, summer ripens the citrus groves and autumn drapes the courtyard in gold. Therein lies the home’s triumph: an almost imperceptible unveiling of nature’s rhythms, revealed by the gentle intersection of art and architecture.
Now on the market for the first time ever, the $2.99 million listing for 4027 Paige Street is held by Greg Holcomb of Carolwood Estates.
Carolwood Estates is a member of Forbes Global Properties, an invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
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