Organic Chemistry

Bestor Architecture's reverential transformation of an astonishing midcentury house in California's Pomona Valley shines a spotlight on the work of Foster Rhodes Jackson

- MAYER RUS

IN THE LIVING ROOM, AN ARNE NORELL LOUNGE CHAIR FACES A STAHL + BAND SECTIONAL COVERED IN SHEARLING ACROSS A 1980s POSTMODERN COCKTAIL TABLE. A SANDRO CHIA PAINTING (LEFT) AND A MARILYN MINTER PHOTOGRAPH (CENTER) ARE INSTALLED ON THE HOUSE'S SIGNATURE DESERT MASONRY AND HEMLOCK ACCORDION WALLS, RESPECTIVELY.

One of the richest veins of California design history can be traced to the Pomona Valley east of Los Angeles, where an extraordinary concentration of fine and decorative arts and architecture effloresced in the middle decades of the 20th century. Much of the area’s creative ferment was centered around the Claremont Colleges and the pioneering work of artist and educator Millard Sheets, an evangelist of Southern California Regionalism who spread the gospel for nearly two decades as head of the art department at Scripps College. Although many of California’s most celebrated architects worked in the Pomona Valley during this fertile era—among them Richard Neutra, A. Quincy Jones, Myron Hunt, Buff & Hensman, and Greene & Greene—one of the most intriguing practitioners was a little-known local talent named Foster Rhodes Jackson, a Frank Lloyd Wright acolyte who honed his craft at Taliesin West before setting up shop in Chino.

A SAM MALOOF HANDLE GRACES THE ENTRY DOOR. THE GLASS WINDOW IS ONE OF SEVERAL DESIGNS BY ARTIST MIKE HILL THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE.