A rchitecture of note is simply not the act of repurposing the scribbles on a piece of paper showing a client’s proposed dream. Masters of the craft employ a deep set of tools to extract client goals that is often in a far different space than an initial consult. Jeff Miller has refined this process that was born when he first walked through the doors of his grandmother’s toney Wilshire Terrace cooperative in Los Angeles’ Platinum Triangle more than 60 years ago. While the building was only six years old at the time, he learned to absorb every nuance of his visits from Portland. Within the building and in her circle, he encountered a menagerie of the finest curated by exquisite design interpreters for neighbors that included the Firestones, Billy Wilder and Maude Chasen. While his grandmother grew up in comfort, his grandfather’s life as a Baltic German was more complicated. His father arranged for him to get a job in Washington DC at the Russian Embassy at 16, rising even- tually to role of chief of protocol. With World War I and fearing repri- sals from the Bolsheviks, he fled to Los Angeles. There wasn’t much he could offer for a trade other than his military school upbringing as a talented horseman. In Hollywood, he and his princely immigrant cohorts were enlisted to help marshal horses for use in movies. Upon their marriage, they ended up living in a home Architect Wallace Neff designed. Migrating across town to condo living after his death, she sold the home to Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton. “She was beloved by all who met her and developed many friend- ships,” Miller suggested. “She sponsored Lillian (Disney) after Walt’s death for the Los Angeles Country Club because of exclusions related to participants in the movie industry. Jimmy (James Pendleton) was the designer who brought her unit to life.” Pendleton’s own home and its oval pool was designed by Architect John Elgin Woolf. It was his first major commission in LA in the Hollywood Regency tradition, and is immortalized in Slim Aarons’ classic 1960 photo, “Pendleton House.” ‘No one can give anyone taste. That is something that is nurtured through experiences over time. Successful clients and their vendors collaborate.’ Miller’s acquaintances with multiple figures and the experience of ex- tensive travels shaped his own worldviews of architecture and how to accommodate the diverse palettes of his clients. Growing up in Portland Heights near Ainsworth School, he was con- stantly amazed how numerous homes of his friends were “modern- ized” and replacing rich architectural elements with everything new. “I spent a great deal of time watching this happen and tried to figure out the benefit of the ‘new’ and how it could ever outweigh the beau- tiful work that was being removed in the process.” In addition to the influence of his grandmother whose timeless taste in furnishings still greets him daily at his office, Miller studied in Rome and traveled throughout England, France, and other European hubs. After a stint at MIT and eventually graduating from Boston University, he received his first major commission from her - to build a country estate in Portland that he still calls home today. While having great deference to historic influences, he is admittedly not a “follower” in any architectural movement where he invites cli- ents to understand new ways of exploring their architectural concepts with him. RICH EXPERIENCES & SHAPING TASTEMAKERS
Many of the current timeless furnishings and antiques in Jeff Miller’s Southwest Portland Studio Building were part of his grandmother’s original collection once housed in the Los Angeles Wilshire Terrace Cooperative unit 12B, recently represented by Broker Michele Hall for another seller (reference page 17).
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