Mind of an Architect
A new book reveals WILLIAM HEFNER’s talent for tailoring homes to fit his clients
Architect William Hefner in the Montecito office of Studio William Hefner. He has an enviable roster of pending and completed residential projects throughout California, the U.S., and internationally.
Written by Lorie Dewhirst Porter
Portraits by Dewey Nicks
“I just never thought of being anything else,” says William Hefner about his decision to become an architect at the tender age of four. Enraptured by trace-paper sketches created by an architect hired by his parents to enlarge the family home, young Hefner was out the door every morning, watching the renovation’s progress. He even joined the construction workers for lunch.
His attraction to architecture continued unabated through high school and college, and he was inspired by visits to a friend whose parents owned a home in Sea Ranch, a planned community in Sonoma County with distinctive wood-sided homes. It was no coincidence he ended up attending UCLA’s graduate architecture program; its dean at the time was Charles W. Moore, a founding architect of Sea Ranch.
A dramatic home in Los Angeles features pitched rooflines with clerestory windows. The art studio, which is clad in metal, acts as a sculptural feature at the entry.
After graduation, Hefner signed on with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, an architectural powerhouse known for its highest-in-the-world skyscraper designs. At 28, Hefner was responsible for planning 50-story buildings.
“I just love houses,” Hefner says. “I just like the whole level of personal interaction and customization.”
“It was really fun,” he says. It was also a lot of work—especially because he had side gigs designing house additions for friends: “At one point, I had two or three people coming to my apartment when I would leave for work; they would work there because I didn’t have an office. I’d get home at night from work and I’d mark up drawings and go to sleep.” Eventually he realized he preferred doing residential work and left Skidmore.
“I just love houses,” Hefner says. “I just like the whole level of personal interaction and the customization. I like trying to figure out the lifestyle, how they live, what their priorities are. And I like the personal challenges of trying to figure it out.”
Some three decades later, Studio William Hefner has more than 40 employees and two locations—in Los Angeles and Montecito—and an enviable roster of pending and completed residential projects throughout California, the United States, and internationally. It’s clear that Hefner has an innate ability to tailor architectural styles to suit his clients’ needs and is equally fluent in classical, modern, and contemporary design.
The architect’s third book (Images Publishing, $75) includes a selection of residential projects spanning the design spectrum from traditional to contemporary.
His third book, Studio William Hefner: California Homes II, featuring a selection of residential projects that span the design spectrum from traditional to contemporary, has just been published. The following three homes are among those showcased in the book.
A Grown-Up House: One of the most dramatic homes in the book was designed for a couple in Los Angeles who were ready to move on from their 1920s Spanish colonial home to a modern open-plan residence with plenty of light and low maintenance. “They said, ‘We’re done with that phase; the kids are gone,’” Hefner remembers. The wife, an artist, needed a studio, which Hefner designed as a metal-sided sculpture attached to the house and surrounded by a Zen garden. Local zoning requirements mandated a pitched roofline, which might have daunted other architects designing in a modern idiom. But according to Hefner, “it created opportunities for clerestory windows” that flood the house with light. At the entryway, an impressive staircase—with glass guardrails anchored by a three-dimensional oak wall with embedded lighting—is a sculpture in itself.
A French Retreat in Montecito: A home Hefner designed for himself in Montecito prompted a couple with a neighboring property to commission a similar design. “They liked the materials,” says Hefner. “We decided to make it a little more traditional than my house and less rustic.” The concept was a compound with an assembly of buildings. A glass breezeway separates the primary bedroom suite from the main house, enabling glimpses of the garden when traversing from the public to the private realm. As a nod to the couple’s home in France, several structures are clad in stone, including a separate painting studio inspired by Cézanne’s atelier in Aix-en-Provence. The landscape was designed around a very old California oak tree that shelters an outdoor dining area.
“I just never thought of being anything else,” Hefner says about his decision to become an architect at the age of four.
A House for Art: An art collector who wanted one of the midcentury Case Study houses in Los Angeles came to Hefner after realizing his art collection would never fit inside a diminutive vintage home. Hefner designed an entirely new residence on a larger scale “as a love letter to Case Study houses.” Situated in the hillside above Beverly Hills, the home’s stunning entry, with its white terrazzo floors and white walls, serves as the perfect art gallery. The main body of the house opens up to the panoramic view, and the minimalist walnut cabinetry and vintage furniture perfectly evoke the Case Study ethos.
A contemporary home in Los Angeles is the perfect container for an extensive art collection. The vintage Italian rosewood table and chairs provide a midcentury modern vibe.
Since the pandemic, Hefner has seen a change in residential commissions. Originally his work in Santa Barbara focused on designing homes for retirees from the East Coast or Midwest who wanted homes for entertaining with space for visiting family. Now he’s designing homes for families.
“It’s been an interesting dynamic,” he says. “They’re full-time residence houses, rather than third or fourth homes.” This trend mirrors the type of homes he’s designed for years in Los Angeles, but because Santa Barbara has less density, Hefner has been able to expand his landscape practice here.
“Landscape is such a big part of what we do,” he notes. “It’s been so amazing to have all this extra land and design some real gardens.”
