West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747
VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. -- Francie Rehwald wanted her mountainside house to be environmentally friendly and to be "feminine," to have curves. "I'm a gal," says the 60-year-old retiree.
Her architect had an idea: Buy a junked 747 and cut it apart. Turn the wings into a roof, the nose into a meditation temple. Use the remaining scrap to build six more buildings, including a barn for rare animals. He made a sketch.
"When I showed it to her in the office, she just started screaming," recalls the architect, David Hertz of Santa Monica. Ms. Rehwald, whose passions include yoga, organic gardening, meditation, folk art and the Cuban cocktails called mojitos, loved the adventurousness of the design, the feminine shapes and especially the environmental aspect.
"It's 100% post-consumer waste," she says. "Isn't that the coolest?"
A meditation chamber will be one of the buildings assembled from an old jet.
Unusual homes are nothing new along the coast of Southern California, long a magnet for eccentrics and free spirits. The "cyclotron house" in Malibu is shaped like an atom smasher. The "eyeball house" in Woodland Hills is a wooden silo with four giant glass eyes affixed to it. The "Chemosphere" looks like a flying saucer perched on a toothpick at the edge of a cliff in the Hollywood Hills.
Ms. Rehwald, whose family founded the first Mercedes-Benz dealership in southern California, is intent on adding to the genre. She has reserved a junked jet to purchase, charmed local planning officials and spent $200,000 on consultants.
"I am as much a part of this world as a bird, the frog in the creek," says Ms. Rehwald, who used to work at the family dealership, of her environmental motives. She wears a white sailor's hat perched atop her tossled blond hair, and her gold and silver bracelets jangle as she speaks. "This is my antidote to the malling of America."
Mr. Hertz has designed homes for such boldface Hollywood names as Julia Louis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame. He says his aeronautical inspiration struck after a long flight from Los Angeles to Scotland. The 747, he says, "though designed in the 1960s, is still an absolutely beautiful contemporary object. It was derived from pure function."
Mr. Hertz isn't the first architect to find inspiration in aeronautics, and people have turned grounded airplanes -- small ones at least -- into makeshift homes before. But Mr. Hertz may well be the first to propose building a high-end home with pieces of a 747.
First, Mr. Hertz had to find a plane. New 747s start at more than $200 million. He called Mark Thompson of Aviation Warehouse, who runs an airplane junkyard in the California desert that resembles the futuristic wasteland of "Mad Max." Mr. Thompson told him that $70,000 to $100,000 would buy Ms. Rehwald a decommissioned Boeing 747-200 that still carries the faded logo of defunct Tower Air. Half the value was in the ailerons, the moveable parts of the wing. Mr. Hertz figured he could use them to control the awning on the patio by Ms. Rehwald's swimming pool.
Mr. Thompson met with county engineering officials to persuade them that the jet parts could withstand the strong winds that sometimes buffet Ms. Rehwald's property. "It's difficult to get a city engineer who is used to working with 2-by-4s and plaster to realize that an airplane that flies 500 miles per hour can stand up to 40-mph winds."
The salvaged wings and tail flaps of a Boeing 747 will serve as the roof for this multilevel country home in California, as seen in an architect's renderings from the front (above) and the side.
Nancy Francis, supervisor of the residential permits section at the Ventura County Planning Division, says she's excited such an unusual dwelling is going up in her jurisdiction. "Everyone in the department wants to go on the site visit when it's done," she says.
A winding one-lane road leads to the sunny hillside in the Santa Monica Mountains where Ms. Rehwald intends to create her architectural oddity. The 55-acre plot with views of the Pacific, now covered in aloe, agave cactus and white oleander flowers, is one hour north of L.A. It once housed dozens of buildings erected by Hollywood designer Tony Duquette, who built with found objects and industrial garbage such as old tires and radiators. A fire in 1993 destroyed most of his strange handiwork. Ms. Rehwald bought the land last year.
Mr. Hertz and his assistants have been spending time in the desert with the derelict jet, measuring it with long pieces of string and contemplating its shapes. Eventually, he and Mr. Thompson will cut it into pieces and truck it to a valley near his client's property. He figures it will take a helicopter 10 hours -- at $8,000 an hour -- to ferry the metal chunks up the hillside.
There he intends to assemble a compound of buildings connected by narrow dirt paths. The jet's wings will rest on thick concrete walls, forming the roof of a multilevel main house. The nose will point to the sky, becoming a meditation chamber, with the cockpit window a skylight. The first-class cabin will be an art studio. The signature bulge on the top of the 747 will become a loft. A barn will house rare domestic animals such as the poitou donkey. A yoga studio, guest house and caretaker's cottage will round out the compound.
"We are trying to use every piece of this aircraft, much like an Indian would use a buffalo," says Mr. Hertz.
He says the eight buildings will be scattered across the terraced hillside as if it were a "crash site." As it happens, the site lies under a jet flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. That concerns the Federal Aviation Administration, which has asked Mr. Hertz to paint special numbers on the wing pieces to alert pilots that Ms. Rehwald's retreat is not a crashed jumbo jet.
In deference to neighbors such as Dick Clark and the former spouses of Bob Dylan and Olivia Newton-John, the structures will keep a low profile, blending into the land, says Mr. Hertz. He intends to "bioblast" the metal with walnut shells to remove the Tower Air paint and dull the sheen.
Ms. Rehwald says she has given Mr. Hertz a $1.5 million budget. She promptly adds: "I'll be real fortunate if it's less than $2 million."
He has already spent money on an archeologist to look for Chumash Indian artifacts and a biologist to tell her how best to manage the coyotes, mountain lions and rattlesnakes that traverse her land. She hopes to start construction within nine months, and to move in by 2007. Until then, when Ms. Rehwald visits the site, she stays in a Winnebago trailer borrowed from a friend. 旧飞机盖房子，酷！
弗朗西?雷瓦尔德 (Francie Rehwald) 想让自己建在山腰的小别墅与周围环境浑然一体，而且要“女性化，”曲线优美。“我可是个女孩子，”这位 60 岁的退休老太太说。
设计师给她出了个主意：买一架废弃的波音 747 飞机，把各个部位分割开。将机翼改成屋顶，用机头做一个冥想室。其余部分还可以做 6 个小房子，甚至包括宠物屋。他大致勾勒了一下。
“当我向她展示这个构想时，她高兴得尖叫起来，”雷瓦尔德的设计师大卫?赫兹 (David Hertz) 回忆说。雷瓦尔德是一个颇有生活情趣的人，对瑜枷、园艺、宗教冥想、民间艺术甚至叫做 mojitos 的古巴鸡尾酒都有研究。她非常喜欢这种前卫设计，对其女性风格和环境意识尤为赞赏。
“这绝对是变废为宝，”她说。“而且是最酷的，不是吗？”
在南加州海岸建一座别具一格的别墅并不是新鲜事，这里早已成为那些洒脱不羁的人和特立独行者的欢乐殿堂。比如，马里布的“螺旋房”像一个核粒子加速器。伍德兰西尔斯的“眼球房”像木制的筒仓，四只硕大的玻璃眼睛镶嵌其中。而“光化层”则像一个飞碟落在了好莱坞悬崖边的牙签上。
雷瓦尔德要在这风景中再添一笔。她已经看好了一架废弃的 747 ，并说服了当地的计划部门，还支付了 20 万美元的咨询费。梅塞德斯 - 奔驰 (Mercedes-Benz) 在南加州的第一家经销店就是由雷瓦尔德家族创建的。
“我感觉就像这世界的一只小鸟，像河里玩耍的青蛙，”雷瓦尔德提到对环境的感觉时说。她棕色的卷发上顶著一顶白色水手帽，谈话间手腕上金、银手镯叮当作响。“我终于可以告别城市的喧嚣，来这里享受一下了。”
好莱坞很多大明星的豪宅都出自赫兹之手，如《宋飞传》 (Seinfild) 女主角茱丽娅?路易斯?德莱弗斯 (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) 的别墅等。他说，在一次从洛杉矶飞往苏格兰的长途旅行后，他脑子里突然冒出了用航空器改装别墅的灵感。尽管 747 设计于六十年代，但目前看来仍然完美绝伦。
在航空器上找到灵感并非史无前例，以前曾经有人将不能飞行的飞机改造成简易房屋。但赫兹无疑是用 747 建造高档别墅的第一人。
首先，赫兹必须找到一架飞机。新的 747 起码要 2 亿美元以上。于是他给加州沙漠地带经营破旧飞机回收站 Aviation Warehouse 的马克?唐普森 (Mark Thompson) 打了电话，加州的沙漠地带就有点像《冲锋飞车队》里充满未来气息的荒土地。
汤普森告诉他，雷瓦尔德夫人花 7 万至 10 万美元就可以买一架已破产公司 Tower Air 还带这该公司标记的波音 747 － 200 飞飞机。机翼上可以移动的副翼就值其中的一半价格。赫兹说，这正好可以用来控制游泳池边天井上的遮阳棚。
汤普森还与县里主管工程的官员见了面，告诉他们飞机的零散部位可以抵御有时会给雷瓦尔德的财产造成损害的暴风。“很难使这些人意识到每小时飞 500 英里的飞机是可以抵抗时速 40 英里的狂风的，”他说。
文图拉县规划局 (Ventura County Planning Division) 住宅审批部的主管南希?弗朗西斯 (Nancy Francis) 说，这样一处与众不同的房屋就要在她的管辖范围内出现，这让她感到特别兴奋。“部门的每个人都打算在房屋建好后亲自去看一看。”
一条单车道小路蜿蜒在圣塔莫尼卡山 (Santa Monica Mountains) 被阳光普照的山坡上，雷瓦尔德夫人的个性小屋就要坐落在这里。整块地方圆 55 英亩，距洛杉矶北部 1 个小时车程。眼下这里正长满芦荟、仙人掌和白色的夹竹桃，抬眼望去，浩瀚的太平洋彷佛近在咫尺。好莱坞知名设计师托尼?杜奎特 (Tony Duquette) 的数十项作品曾经坐落于此，所用材料从拾获物到旧轮胎和散热器等工业制品五花八门。不幸的是， 1993 年的一场大火将他的大部分作品化为灰烬。去年雷瓦尔德买下了这块地。
赫兹和他的助手们只是搬运这架飞机就花了很长时间，他们先用长线进行测量，揣摩它的形状。然后，他和汤普森把这架飞机截成小块，用卡车运到雷瓦尔德这块地产附近的山谷里。他说，得用一架直升飞机花上 10 个小时（每小时 8,000 美元）将这些金属块运到山坡上。
然后他开始用这些飞机部件构建一组房屋，房屋与房屋间以羊肠小道相连。机翼被扣在厚厚的混凝土墙壁上，形成多层主楼的屋顶。机头朝向天空，变成雷瓦尔德的冥想室，驾驶仓的窗户就变成了小天窗。一等仓成了艺术品陈列室。机身上方突出的部分被改装成小阁楼。飞机的机械舱里将饲养本地的稀有动物，如普瓦图小驴等。瑜珈活动室、客房和保姆房环绕在主楼周围。
“我们设法把飞机的每一片都有效利用上，就像印度人利用水牛一样，”赫兹说。
他说， 8 座房屋将散落在倾斜的山坡上，就好像飞机坠毁的“事故现场”。而这正好位于通往洛杉矶机场的航空线上，因此联邦航空管理局已提醒赫兹，一定要在机翼部分刷上特殊数字，向路过的飞行员表明，雷瓦尔德的小别墅可不是坠毁的大飞机。
赫兹说，与迪克?克拉克 (Dick Clark) 和鲍博?迪伦 (Bob Dylan) 及奥利维亚?牛顿?约翰 (Olivia Newton-John) 这对前夫妇在附近建造的别墅不同，雷瓦尔德的别墅在形制上将保持低调，不露痕迹地融入脚下这片土地。他打算把这些金属壳做个“生物喷砂”处理，用胡桃壳覆盖 Tower Air 的图案，也让金属壳不再那么刺眼。
雷瓦尔德表示，她已经向赫兹拨发了 150 万美元的预算。她马上又补充说：“我觉得如果能低于 200 万美元就已经很幸运了。”
赫兹已经花钱请一位考古学家寻找土马什族印第安人的原始作品，并让一个生物学家来向雷瓦尔德讲解如何最有效地应对草原狼、美洲狮和响尾蛇。雷瓦尔德希望她的别墅能在 9 个月内动工， 2007 年前入住。到那时，她将驾著从朋友处借来的温内贝戈房车来这里。
