How Michael Palumbo Surfs His Way Forward in Los Angeles – Part 2

How Michael Palumbo Surfs His Way Forward in Los Angeles – Part 2

Surfing on the Break

Palumbo Design’s capabilities are amply on display in a house designed by Michael Palumbo in Beverly Hills at 1201 Laurel Way, now under construction. Approaching the house on a sun-drenched California spring day, Palumbo pulls his car around a line of a dozen tradesman’s trucks waiting to enter. Inside the neighborhood, one finds what one expects—large California-style houses—and something rather unexpected: a low, abstractly geometrical form with crisp, planar surfaces rendered in rammed earth. Virtually windowless where the house faces the view, at its entry side the house expands as the grade falls away, cracking its obscure shell to reveal broad walls where floor to ceiling glass will be that bound this private home with a 300 foot infinity moat surrounding it. This amazing one-of-a-kind moat will be connecting to the swimming pool on opposite ends, so even when one is swimming, the view is always available.

The house is large—the total square footage will be 1 acre—but that number is made practically moot by the boldness of the design and by a combination of technology, material, and dexterity utterly unique in the residential sphere. This is the first high-end spec house Palumbo has seen in a while and it is poised on its own peninsula, north of Sunset Boulevard, a perfect place to build a luxury home - one of the best locations in Beverly Hills. Palumbo was able to increase the square footage of the house by creating flat areas of the house that compliment the amazing infinity moat. “When that moat is lit,” says Palumbo, “It will be amazing.”

Another beautiful feature in the home - Super Thassos - pure white recycled glass that does not stain unlike regular Thassos. Super Thassos does not stain. “Very few people can install it,” says Palumbo, “It takes a special technician and it will be phenomenal in this house.”

A great deal of structural steel was removed since it was blocking the view that would allow Palumbo to provide his signature indoor-outdoor feel. Additional features include pocketed doors throughout the house. Palumbo added pocketed doors so the doors could remain hidden throughout the house. The biggest challenges were adding more square footage and dealing with a guesthouse that was so deteriorated that it could have fallen down. The city of Beverly Hills did not want it torn down, but now the guesthouse will have views that are just as good as the main house. Palumbo states this project is an advancement and refinement of his designs done in the past – a combination of the best from all the homes.

The project is a godsend when the pipeline of work slowed to a trickle, and when projects in hand turn to sand overnight. To provide a glimpse at the latter scenario, Palumbo fondly remembers a trophy home in another upscale subdivision, the ‘Bird Streets’. Lined with celebrity sightings throughout the neighborhood and open to the elements, the house has been on ABC’s “The View” and was 'thee' house of glamor in the 4^th season of HBO’s coveted TV series “Entourage”. Designed by Palumbo, the home has ‘jetliner’ views and a patio the hangs over a cliff.  The house, located on Oriole Drive, is the highest selling home per square foot in both Beverly Hills and the Bird Streets.

How Michael Palumbo Surfs His Way Forward in Los Angeles – Part 1

Custom Design-Build designer Michael Palumbo remembers the first hard jolt that came in spring 2008, when two major projects disappeared within a month. “It was probably $35 million of work that went away,” Palumbo says. “For me that’s the equivalent of a whole year of work.” While other designers struggled to maintain a semblance of their former business or quietly folded, Palumbo responded with a flurry of innovation in smaller projects, focusing on new specific rooms, products, innovations and the latest in green building materials. Drawing on his ties with prominent residential architects, Palumbo expanded beyond a shrinking luxury building market in Hollywood while leveraging its talented chops to explore entirely new lines of work. Yes, Palumbo readily admits, the boom years were good to him, but he is adamant in his assertion that they are over. “If you’re a designer in Los Angeles just waiting for it to go back to the way it was,” he says, “you’ll be waiting for a while.”

FINDING HIS LEGS IN THE WATER

Michael Palumbo will be the first to tell you he works with a different mindset than your average person. As a kid in California he was an avid surfer, he raced go-karts around the country. This lead him to racing cars professionally where he won numerous awards making it to the Toyota Altantic Championship and PGG Indy Light circuit where he won!  This motivated him to work for his father’s development and construction company every summer to pay for his car-racing career. After taking up construction with his dad, absorbing the business without really trying. During the California winters he helped his mother an interior designer where she was considered one of the best in the industry. “I learned how to swim real well when it came to creating a beautiful home inside and out,” says Palumbo, grinning. “Just like racing cars and surfing, I learned real fast.” Entrepreneurship came to him as naturally as racing and surfing. “I always had my own business,” he says. During high school it was Window Washing and a mobile car detailing business. “The summer before college, I made like $40,000,” he says. “I went to college to major in business but I was already running a successful business.” Once there, he couldn’t stay. “I was in class, and I thought to myself, this is a huge waste of time. Not only is it costing a ton of money, I’m not making any money.’” Architecture may have been a better fit, but true to his restless enterprising nature, Palumbo charted his own course in the design-build profession. He knew how to swim, but now he wanted to surf – his own way.

Designer Michael Palumbo - February 24, 2012

Designers who also are builders are nothing new, but very few deploy their construction crews in the service of their design as opposed to a sole architect, and that is precisely the approach that Palumbo settled on. More than half of Palumbo’s work is for or with architects, and the company has created a niche for itself by partnering with Los Angeles’s most prominent modernist firms.

Palumbo didn’t set out to become a designer/builder, he started out as a General Contractor. “I just sort of followed my nose,” he says. In 1982, he arrived in Arcadia amid the Reagan era. “I met a ton of architects. Nobody was very busy. But it was a good opportunity for me because I was able to network with all these guys and start building and designing in another direction than how my father had been doing it.” And that gave Palumbo the idea for a different kind of building company. “I had always worked in the construction industry,” he explains, and his notion of design and architecture had always been entwined with the construction process, in part, thanks to his mother including him on her interior design work. “I never had a strong desire to just sit and draw pictures.” Putting an architect’s aesthetic sense and design skills out on the jobsite made Palumbo a hit with La’s top modernist firms. “And that…” he says, “…became a really good business plan.” In short order he established a new category in the industry: Palumbo Design – a Design-Build company.

Designer Michael Palumbo - February 24, 2012

“I am the ‘Master’ and the other principals are architects, superintendents and subcontractors. Because I am overseeing it all as a project manager and hold the main vision I am able to keep everyone working cohesively towards the same goal. In the long run, it saves money.” With a skilled designer on the jobsite, the architect can safely put more detail on his drawings. “It is here where I can think about door jambs; and consider the look, feel and placement of the type of cabinets.” When he intends minor building components to align, Palumbo says, “I don’t have to communicate it to the electrician or the plumber or the tile setter. It’s just done.” Of course, a good architect on the team expands Palumbos’ range as a designer, but good design also pushes the abilities of the architect. “We’re always exploring new territory,” says Palumbo, who relies on the architect for feedback on constructability while the developer focuses on cost and keeping within budget. 

New Beverly Hills House by Palumbo Design is the Best Yet

Sneak Peak: The Story of 1201 Laurel Way

A Redesign of a New Beverly Hills House

By Palumbo Design - Set to be Best Yet

Even though Palumbo Design has been designing and building quality upscale homes in the Los Angeles basin for thirty years, it does not mean his work cannot exceed his experience in the next project and that is what is happening on the latest Beverly Hills home he is designing and building at 1201 Laurel Way. 

"It has been a few years since we have seen a high end spec house like this in a while", says Mike Palumbo of Palumbo Design. “One design challenge is that part of the house had to remain, so we had to work with the bones of the house.” Mike and the architect were forced to redesign the house that sits on a peninsula around the perimeters. 

“There were a lot of view restrictions because the city has a view ordinance and because we can’t block the neighbors, but it is actually a perfect place to build a house.”

This house will be a monument to structure, form, architecture and design because of the Beverly Hills home building requirements alone that the designer and architect are forced to adhere to, according to Palumbo. “This will be one of the best built houses we have ever done.”

Location is one of the most beautiful advantages of the property north of sunset but not the only one. The house is also using all the latest energy saving technology and part of that also coincides with an increase in square footage to the home. Palumbo and his team were able to increase the floor ratio of the house, which includes the guesthouse, by creating flat areas of the property in building a 300-foot infinity mote that will be around the entire house. There is no other house in Beverly Hills that has a mote going around 90% of the house using super thassos glass A.K.A. crystallized glass or minicrystal. It is pure recycled glass in pure white and does not stain. Very few people can install this beautiful glass provided by Soli direct from the quarry, it takes a special technician.

This white thassos and chocolate wenge will be the threaded theme throughout the house. The chocolate Wenge (weng-gay) is a tropical timber, very dark in color with a distinctive figure and a strong partridge wood pattern. The wood is heavy and hard. These two products alone that Mike chose for the design in the house will be a striking contrast while providing the indoor-outdoor feel that was blocking the terrific views the old house had on the peninsula.

Mike Palumbo's Early Design Sense

Chinese architecture refers to a style of architecture that has taken shape in East Asia over many centuries. The structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained largely unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details.

Mike Palumbo started in the industry building new custom homes in the San Gabriel Valley with a target audience of Asian descent. Mike's own design skills in the first few years of business brought a very large Asian following and did so until 1999.


Asian style interior design takes its cue from Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and other Eastern cultures. Asian design influences contemporary interiors with Zen spaces for relaxation, feng shui furniture arrangements, Asian-style bedding, lacquered boxes or silk Chinoiserie wallpaper. Needless to say, Asian home design varies greatly. 

An important feature in Chinese architecture is its emphasis on articulation and bilateral symmetry, which signifies balance. When possible, plans for renovation and extension of a house will often try to maintain this symmetry provided that there is enough capital to do so. Secondary elements are positioned either side of main structures as two wings to maintain overall bilateral symmetry.

In contrast to the buildings, Chinese gardens are a notable exception which tends to be asymmetrical. The principle underlying the garden's composition is to create enduring flow.