Manhattan Beach Views
For a house that’s only been in existence for just four months, Manhattan Beach architect Michael Lee’s artistic creation has had entirely too many names. First, the home was referred to as the Kaminski House, named after the original developer. Lee calls the home the Manhattan Avenue Project, an unlikely name given that the last Manhattan Project was sort of a bomb. The name that will most likely survive is the Galley House, dubbed appropriately by the November purchaser and now permanent resident, Katie Galley.
“It’s an interesting house because the lot is so tiny – 35 x 40-ft. But the house is 2,500 sq. ft.,” said Lee. “It’s all about achieving density in a pleasing way. We have an elevator in there. The challenge is, how do you do that without the house just looking like a box? There are two new houses to the west, an alley to the south with newer condominiums across the alley. On the north, right next to it is a little one-bedroom house will probably be developed soon. It’s surrounded basically by 3-story stuff.”
Lee said the Galley House “was a ground-up construction. It took about 16 months; completed last October.”
Purchaser Katie Galley said, “My parents were both architects. I appreciated the use of space and the natural materials used in the construction.” Galley, a native Londoner who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years – the last year in L.A. – went through the property during an open house and fell in love with it. And why not? She lived for a year in downtown L.A., where she works as an economic advisor. “And, I have a college-aged son who really likes living near the beach.”
She remembered that, in the initial marketing for the house, the place was referred to as “the Sanctuary. And that it is. The house is fabulous.”
Lee’s office is at Marine and Highland in Manhattan Beach. Always looking to improve his neighborhood, he designed the Corkscrew Café in 2007, just across street from his office. He said he wanted a decent looking place to have morning coffee and light dinner in the early evening.
Lee works primarily in the beach cities, building and designing mostly houses.
“I’m a local boy” raised in El Porto. He has done work in Tahoe, Santa Barbara and other points north, but “mostly in the South Bay.” Lee Studied at Southern California Institute of Architecture (SciArc) and started his own firm in 1991. As with many SciArc grads, Lee was initially intent on creating buildings of ultra-modern design. He told Easy Reader reporter Mark McDermott in a 2006 interview that he found it troubling that his early constructions were less than warmly received by their neighbors.
“The fact they didn’t ever seem very happy, that was really kind of an embittering experience,” he said. “I thought, ‘Wow, this isn’t very fun.’” He decided to expand his original architectural views, and the fun returned.
Lee employs six people in his office. “We do about 10 projects a year,” he said, calling himself “a very hands-on kinda guy. I get overly-involved. I’m trying to force myself not to be so involved in all the little things; but these houses are so complicated now that you have to pay close attention to every little thing.”
Every little thing appears to have been taken care of in the construction of the Galley House. B