Architect George Sweeney’s Peninsula Palladian
Doctors Pam and Sarbpaul Bhalla Palladian style home, designed by George Sweeney.
Doctors Pam and Sarbpaul Bhalla studied medicine in northern India and in California. Pam, who is now retired, was anesthesiologist at the former San Pedro Peninsula Hospital. Sarbpaul is a practicing spinal surgeon at Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Their son is also a spinal surgeon at Long Beach Memorial Hospital and their daughter is a special education teacher.
Three decades ago, the couple moved to a simple home in Rancho Palos Verdes, with the dream of one day building a Palladian style home, inspired by the 16th century Venetian architect Andrea Palladio. The first step in realizing this dream was to purchase a large, vacant lot in Palos Verdes Estates.
“Our days and nights back then were defined by work and building a future for our family,” Pam said. “I remember getting off work and sitting on the embankment of what would be our new home, sipping hot tea, with the moonlight above us and the sounds of our then toddlers running about the framework. We didn’t get to oversee much of the actual construction because we were working so hard to pay for it.”
The Palladian home displays classical Italian architecture with the Corinthian order columns facing out to the ornamental finials protruding from the chimneys.
“Our contractor, Robert York, recommended an architect, but when we saw the quality and genius of a George Sweeney home down the street, we knew we wanted him,” Pam said. “George is purposeful, pure and methodical with his approach to design. He spent one whole year preparing our drawings. Every last detail was managed by him, down to the stamped concrete pathways.
A westerly view of this home.
Sweeney, in recalling his work on the 8,100 sq. ft. home, said, “I was out there with the workers making sure the cuts were geometric, to mimic exactly the look of real stone. If I had left them on their own, they would have made the cuts angular and it would have looked more like a jigsaw puzzle.”
“George employs a quiet patience in his work. We have never regretted the immense time he took to conceive and create our family’s home,” Pam said.
The most notable challenge the house presented was its site.
“The house is cut into the site. There’s a 50- to 60-foot vertical drop on this lot,” Sweeney said.
The front door is at street level, facing west. The master suite, above the grand living room, features an expansive cast stone veranda that feels like a grand perch overlooking paradise. The view encompases both the Queen’s Necklace and the LA city basin r in a seamless array of color and light. Although built into the hillside, no casons were needed. Sweeney joked that even an 8.0 earthquake here probably wouldn’t effect it.
Sweeney said the Italianate homes he creates look like real Italian villas because he employs old world characteristics that are not often followed today. Real Italian villas, he said, have thick masonry walls, similar to true Spanish colonial designs, though Spanish colonials are less detailed.
A Corinthian style colonnade and domed pavilion are just beyond the pool, which features a sizable guest house.
“Our son was married by the pavillion,” Pam said as we strolled passed the Villa d’Este spillway, a long, babbling fountain aptly named by Sweeney. Two of the three Ladies of Grace stand beside the pavillion and a life size statue of David, described in the Bible as a young shephard chosen by God for his pure heart, presides over the serene, pebble-tec finished pool.
Sweeney’s dark wood and a coffered ceiling give the library an Old World feeling.
The exterior walls are composed of large, rectangular blocks of stone. For the grand exterior arches, Sweeney said, “We cut the joints into the plaster, like the classical compression arches.”
A statue of David presides over the pool and the pavilion where the Bhallas’ son was married.
a classical Corinthian order colonnade frames the front entry.
Dark green exterior shutters and stand-out architraves frame the windows. Cornices above and below the exterior bank of windows and rafter tails made of wood just inside the roof lines add to the authenticity. “Each one was individually shaped with a bandsaw,” Sweeney said.
The Corinthian order design crowns the colonnade supporting the Roman pavilion.
A metal accent, called a finial, extends past the chimney tops. They often feature a design ball, fleur de lys or can be more gothic in nature, with gargoyles or dragons.
The grand entrance dome designed by Sweeney is illuminated by circular windows and a towering skylight. The Bhallas commissioned Paul Roberts to paint a mural inside the dome featuring an afternoon sky with pink flamingos flying on one end and white seagulls on the other. Roberts also painted the English hunt scene that hangs above the library fireplace. The dark wood wall paneling and coffered ceiling designed by Sweeney exude an old world feel that invites visitors to browse the extensive book collection the Bhallas have assembled.
The grounds feature an orchard with grape vines, and avocado, pear, apple, peach and plum trees.
“Our friend is a pilot and when he flies overhead, our pavillion stands out from the air, and he tells us, Pam, today I flew over your Taj Mahal,” Pam said.