Los Angeles Firm Citizen Artist Channels Mies Van Der Rohe for a Robust, Contemporary Home 

When a Los Angeles real estate developer set out to build a family home for entertaining and displaying his growing art collection, he figured he’d oversee the creative direction, maybe serve as project manager. “I wanted to do it with no design help,” he recalls. “But my wife said, ‘No, that’s not happening.’”

As the husband had already commissioned architectural plans from Philadelphia firm Carl Massara & Associates, which devised a four-story, 10,000-square-foot structure with massive, boldly rectilinear volumes, he now needed someone to add polish to the shell of a home. Luckily, a design magazine editor friend referred him to Joshua Rose and Rafael Kalichstein of Citizen Artist, the buzzy interiors firm that Variety recently described as the masterminds behind “some of Hollywood’s most inspired homes.”

Rose, a former visual effects designer, and Kalichstein, an actor turned alternative medicine practitioner, are a married couple who launched their studio two decades ago, when a house they redesigned for themselves in L.A.’s Silver Lake drew so much attention they realized they could do it professionally. They are known for high-impact, chic spaces marked by striking yet refined gestures. When the developer enlisted them to oversee the interiors of his home, the remit he gave them was to implement Massara’s vision while infusing the rooms with a sense of warmth and human scale and keeping it all “monastic quiet,” Rose says.

Kalichstein and Rose started with strategic tweaks to the architecture, such as adding a clerestory window in the kitchen and inserting other perforations throughout the home to enhance the light and sense of openness as well as for atmospheric effects. Their material choices included rift white oak millwork in many of the rooms, plus sumptuous Italian travertine for kitchen countertops, the vanity and flooring in the primary bath, and around the raised infinity-edge swimming pool. “There’s a real Barcelona Pavilion note there,” Kalichstein says of the pool terrace, referencing Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s 1929 architectural masterpiece.

Subtle plaster finishes were used in the kitchen and baths as well as on the living area’s minimal fireplace, while Belgian mineral lime paint was hand applied throughout. “You can see the brushstroke on the walls and ceilings,” says Kalichstein. “There’s depth and detail that add to the sense of calm and serenity.”

With every design decision, the husband remained intensely involved. Of particular interest was the installation of the family’s collection of contemporary art—a lively mix of figurative works, still lifes, and abstractions. One of the largest paintings, Friedrich Kunath’s Sunrise, Sunset, glows with brilliant yellows in the open living room, overlooking a seating area furnished with a Paola Lenti sectional and Dmitriy & Co swivel chairs. Directly opposite, an enigmatic Christoph Ruckhäberle painting of three snappily dressed young men hangs prominently between the bar and dining area.

A massive table designed by Citizen Artist in oak and stainless steel anchors the dining space. Adding warmth above is a trio of bulbous, cloudlike light fixtures by Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert, one of the few examples of decorative lighting in the pared-down, clean-lined home.

In the husband’s office, a Jonas Wood painting of former L.A. Lakers star Pau Gasol overlooks the custom-designed desk. The pièce de résistance, however, is the wall of bespoke bookcases filled with bobbleheads of sports figures—more than a thousand collected by the owners’ older son. The display was more of a priority for the husband than for his wife. “She wanted to make sure they were presented in a way that felt artful,” says Kalichstein.

Despite the home’s serene and spare vibe, there is a recurring sense of playfulness. In the younger son’s bedroom, Citizen Artist designed a bunk bed and desk with integrated storage and shelves for books, toys, and stuffed animals. A gorilla chair covered in fur-like strips of blue-green leather adds whimsy.

That spirit is carried into a subterranean game room, where the designers installed an oak air hockey table and a Ping-Pong table with a mesh net. “We play Ping-Pong down there forever,” says the husband. The lower level also features one of the home’s coolest design elements: At just the right time in the afternoon, dappled sunlight filtering down through the staircase transforms the landing into a veritable Light and Space installation. It’s the kind of lyrical detail one wouldn’t expect to find in an L.A. basement.

“In Eastern medicine you take in more information from being with a person than you do from what they tell you,” says Kalichstein. “Sometimes supplying things that a person doesn’t know they want, but you can see they need, is part of the process.” Adds Rose, “There’s a cinematic and graphical kind of storytelling piece to this house. We’re always involved in telling other people’s stories; we’re just utilizing technology and imagery to bring those to life.”

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Late Fall Issue under the headline “Speaking Volumes.” Subscribe to the magazine.