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West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747 Nov 10, 2005, 9:00 pm PST West Coast Woman To Build Crash Pad Out of an Old 747 By Alex Frangos VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. Her architect had an idea: Buy a junked 747 and cut it apart. Turn the wi ngs into a roof, the nose into a meditation temple. Use the remaining sc rap to build six more buildings, including a barn for rare animals. "When I showed it to her in the office, she just started screaming," reca lls the architect, David Hertz of Santa Monica. Ms Rehwald, whose passi ons include yoga, organic gardening, meditation, folk art and the Cuban cocktails called mojitos, loved the adventurousness of the design, the f eminine shapes and especially the environmental aspect. Unusual homes are nothing new along the coast of Southern California, lon g a magnet for eccentrics and free spirits. The "cyclotron house" in Mal ibu is shaped like an atom smasher. The "eyeball house" in Woodland Hill s is a wooden silo with four giant glass eyes affixed to it. The "Chemos phere" looks like a flying saucer perched on a toothpick at the edge of a cliff in the Hollywood Hills.
The salvaged wings and tail flaps of a Boeing 747 will serve as the roof for this multilevel country home in California, as seen in an architect' s renderings from the front (above) and the side. Ms Rehwald, whose family founded the first Mercedes-Benz dealership in s outhern California, is intent on adding to the genre. She has reserved a junked jet to purchase, charmed local planning officials and spent $200 ,000 on consultants. "I am as much a part of this world as a bird, the frog in the creek," say s Ms Rehwald, who used to work at the family dealership, of her environ mental motives. She wears a white sailor's hat perched atop her tossled blond hair, and her gold and silver bracelets jangle as she speaks. Mr Hertz has designed homes for such boldface Hollywood names as Julia L ouis-Dreyfus of Seinfeld fame. He says his aeronautical inspiration stru ck after a long flight from Los Angeles to Scotland. The 747, he says, " though designed in the 1960s, is still an absolutely beautiful contempor ary object. Mr Hertz isn't the first architect to find inspiration in aeronautics, a nd people have turned grounded airplanes -- small ones at least -- into makeshift homes before. But Mr Hertz may well be the first to propose b uilding a high-end home with pieces of a 747. He called Mark Thompson of Aviation Warehouse, who runs an airpla ne junkyard in the California desert that resembles the futuristic waste land of "Mad Max" Mr Thompson told him that $70,000 to $100,000 would buy Ms Rehwald a decommissioned Boeing 747-200 that still carries the f aded logo of defunct Tower Air. Half the value was in the ailerons, the moveable parts of the wing. Mr Hertz figured he could use them to contr ol the awning on the patio by Ms Rehwald's swimming pool. Mr Thompson met with county engineering officials to persuade them that the jet parts could withstand the strong winds that sometimes buffet Ms Rehwald's property. "It's difficult to get a city engineer who is used to working with 2-by-4s and plaster to realize that an airplane that fli es 500 miles per hour can stand up to 40-mph winds." Nancy Francis, supervisor of the residential permits section at the Ventu ra County Planning Division, says she's excited such an unusual dwelling is going up in her jurisdiction. "Everyone in the department wants to g o on the site visit when it's done," she says. A winding one-lane road leads to the sunny hillside in the Santa Monica M ountains where Ms Rehwald intends to create her architectural oddity. T he 55-acre plot with views of the Pacific, now covered in aloe, agave ca ctus and white oleander flowers, is one hour north of LA It once house d dozens of buildings erected by Hollywood designer Tony Duquette, who b uilt with found objects and industrial garbage such as old tires and rad iators. Mr Hertz and his assistants have been spending time in the desert with t he derelict jet, measuring it with long pieces of string and contemplati ng its shapes. Eventually, he and Mr Thompson will cut it into pieces a nd truck it to a valley near his client's property. He figures it will t ake a helicopter 10 hours -- at $8,000 an hour -- to ferry the metal chu nks up the hillside. There he intends to assemble a compound of buildings connected by narrow dirt paths. The jet's wings will rest on thick concrete walls, forming t he roof of a multilevel main house. The nose will point to the sky, beco ming a meditation chamber, with the cockpit window a skylight. The signature bulge on the top of th e 747 will become a loft. A barn will house rare domestic animals such a s the poitou donkey. A yoga studio, guest house and caretaker's cottage will round out the compound. "We are trying to use every piece of this aircraft, much like an Indian w ould use a buffalo," says Mr Hertz. He says the eight buildings will be scattered across the terraced hillsid e as if it were a "crash site." As it happens, the site lies under a jet flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. That concerns the F ederal Aviation Administration, which has asked Mr Hertz to paint speci al numbers on the wing pieces to alert pilots that Ms Rehwald's retreat is not a crashed jumbo jet. In deference to neighbors such as Dick Clark and the former spouses of Bo b Dylan and Olivia Newton-John, the structures will keep a low profile, blending into the land, says Mr Hertz. He intends to "bioblast" the met al with walnut shells to remove the Tower Air paint and dull the sheen. She promp tly adds: "I'll be real fortunate if it's less than $2 million." He has already spent money on an archeologist to look for Chumash Indian artifacts and a biologist to tell her how best to manage the coyotes, mo untain lions and rattlesnakes that traverse her land. She hopes to start construction within nine months, and to move in by 2007. Until then, wh en Ms Rehwald visits the site, she stays in a Winnebago trailer borrowe d from a friend.
The wings of the old 747 will rest on thick concrete walls, forming the r oof of a multilevel main house. Other pieces will be used to assemble an art studio, a loft and a barn to house rare domestic animals.
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