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Writer Susan Orlean in her Studio City home, which was designed by the Viennese architect Rudolph Schindler. It is the second Schindler home that Orlean and her husband, John Gillespie Jr. In case you are not among her several thousand followers on social media, Susan Orlean has been teaching herself kintsugi, the ancient Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. Los angeles my love learning to play the ukulele.

Somehow it’s not surprising that Orlean’s Instagram images of the multi-angled house — built in 1946 for Mischa Kallis, an art director for Universal Studios, on a hillside lot in Studio City — look professional, including the ones photobombed by her Welsh springer spaniel, Ivy. If Orlean, a New Yorker staff writer known for her quirky subjects and discursive style, were profiling herself, here’s where she might dispense a crisp appraisal along the lines of: She has hair the color of a lightly oxidized penny, an easy laugh, and a disarming manner that comes in handy when writing about girl bands and racing pigeons. Behind the couple, a wall of windows looks out on a broad sweep of sky, two mountain ranges furred green by the recent rains and, in the middle distance, the turrets and ramparts of Hogwarts Castle at Universal. The Kallis House, as it is known, was built in 1946 for Mischa Kallis, then an art director for Universal Studios.

I’m going to make a house that’s all about saying it’s new. There’s a kind of invention that’s always in the air. Also in the air, on this storm-scrubbed March afternoon: the melodic ringtones of Orlean’s and Gillespie’s phones and, from the entry courtyard, where workers are restoring a brick terrace, whining buzz saws and the strains of classic rock radio. Susan Orlean at the LA Times Festival of Books: Orlean appears at 10:30 a.

April 14 in conversation with The Times Deputy Managing Editor for arts and entertainment Julia Turner. California from the East Coast in 2007. The bar cart in the home’s living room. One day their real estate agent showed them a sculptural 1,500-square-foot residence in Studio City with the jutting profile of an ocean liner — the Roth House, built, like the Kallis House, by Schindler in 1946.

At this point the pair could probably write a monograph on the architect. Times Festival of Books is back! Check out the lineup for our massive literary event launching April 13 and 14 at the USC campus. Schindler, as he is frequently referred to, studied under the modernist pioneer Adolf Loos at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts before coming to the U. 1914, and then moved to Los Angeles in 1920 to work on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. It’s like joining a secret society, in a way. A Japanese sculpture made of iron accents the living room.

The home’s furnishings are a mix of newly acquired items, longtime possessions and furniture purchased from the estate of a previous owner. In 2011, after Gillespie was asked to help with a tech startup here, the couple moved into the Roth House full time. Austin started elementary school, where one of his first assignments was to interview a city employee. Happily, around this time the Kallis House came on market. Schindler’s most-cited works, beloved as a dramatic illustration of the architect’s design philosophy both indoors and out. The view from the master bedroom. The Kallis House was no exception: Its foundation was crumbling, and one side of the house had slid 6 inches down the hill.

Much of the wood was rotted. Several coats of gray paint concealed what Orlean and Gillespie discovered, in an old photo, was a wealth of warm woodwork — mahogany, Douglas fir, plywood. After that, furnishing the place was a breeze. Like most Schindler structures, the Kallis House was endowed with numerous built-ins. The couple also were able to acquire the original living room furniture from the Sharlin estate. And the angular pieces they had procured for the Roth House are equally at home here.

Of course, both projects seem to have taken on a life of their own. Having just returned from a book signing in New York, Orlean was preparing to leave for one in Canada. David Kwong, a magician and New York Times crossword puzzle constructor. Whenever I make dinner plans with them it turns into this big roundtable of writers, food bloggers, actors and producers. Orlean is also anxious to get back to writing. In fact, she’s kicking around an idea for a book about writing. Although it’s the first adaptation she’s worked on, she’s no Hollywood newbie.

Susan Orlean, John Gillespie and Ivy, their Welsh springer spaniel. You can bury me in the courtyard. Either way, she and Gillespie have found their personal equilibrium here — in this part of the world, in their anything-but-normal perch within it. A digest of essential news, insight and analysis from L. You are now following this newsletter. What’s your nightmare first date story?