Some houses announce themselves immediately. Others ask you to slow down. Tucked behind gates and layers of greenery in Brentwood, Benmore Terrace belongs to the latter. You don’t so much arrive at this house as walk through it – past a sequence of landscape, light and quiet intention – until the architecture reveals itself. Designed in 1960 by A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons, the house feels less like a preserved moment in time and more like an ongoing conversation between structure and nature.
Originally commissioned by promoter Sarah Jane Lapin, Benmore Terrace was designed to reward movement rather than spectacle. Situated on nearly an acre, the home reframes traditional ideas of front and back, guiding you inward toward expansive glass windows, hillside views, and a waterfall that is an integral part of the home rather than an added feature. Light and openness choreograph daily life here, blurring the line between inside and outside in a way that still feels modern.
Claire O’Connor is the founder and visionary of O’Connor Estates, a Los Angeles-based real estate and development company that redefines modern luxury through soul, storytelling and design. Claire’s approach focuses on fewer, better homes that resonate deeply with her vision of quality, connection and emotional resonance.
When investor and real estate agent Claire O’Connor When encountering the property, she was not looking for a project, she was responding to a feeling. “Benmore wasn’t a house I was looking for,” she says. “It’s a house I stumbled into, and it revealed itself in layers over time.” Even after years of renovation that had dulled its voice, the house’s original architectural DNA—the restraint, the clarity, the way it favored nature over exposure—remained intact. Rather than reinventing the house from scratch, Claire saw a management opportunity.
Why preservation is important
What ultimately set Benmore Terrace apart was not just its setting, but the fact that its architectural intent was still legible. The home presents a clear perspective on what modern life in Los Angeles can feel like: open, grounded, and deeply connected to the natural world.
“Knowing that this was a Jones and Emmons house commissioned by Sarah Jane Lapin came with responsibility,” says Claire. “You’re not just updating a property. You’re giving a sense of what modern life in Los Angeles can feel like.” Although the bones of the house remained strong, a renovation in the 1990s had obscured that clarity, layering finishes that muted the voice of the architecture.
In collaboration with Jesse Rudolph and Joelle Kutner of Uncle Dezinthe restoration began with subtraction. Dated elements were removed so that the original gestures of the house (light, proportion and fluidity) could be reread. The goal was not nostalgia, but translation: restoring the intent of the architecture while elevating the function for contemporary living.
Design with nature
At Benmore Terrace, nature has never been treated as an accessory. Expansive fixed windows frame the hillside greenery, allowing light to filter through the house throughout the day, while the presence of the waterfall anchors daily life.
This philosophy guided the interiors. Ome Dezin worked in a neutral palette designed for distancing, warming the space with natural woods and grounding it with stone, including travertine in the kitchen and bathrooms. These documents do not compete for attention; they create calm. “Nature was not considered decoration,” explains Claire. “He was treated like a collaborator.” The result is a home deeply in tune with its surroundings, where the interiors serve as a backdrop to what unfolds just beyond the glass.
Edit with intention
Deciding what to preserve required both respect and restraint. The house’s fixed windows, skylights and main glazing, central to its identity, were non-negotiable. When new elements were introduced, they were approached as translations rather than reinventions.
Custom details throughout the home were designed to respond to its scale and pace: built-ins, mirrors and a powder room door designed to feel seamlessly integrated. In the dining room, a custom table and chairs designed by Claire’s friend Ben Willet fit so naturally into the architecture that they seem inevitable. “In a house like this, the value is about more than the level of finish,” notes Claire. “It’s about protecting architectural history.”
Letting a house find its inhabitants
In a market focused on broad appeal, Claire resists the idea of designing for everyone. “A house isn’t for everyone,” she said. “It’s for someone.” Interestingly, Benmore Terrace challenged assumptions about who this person was. While the team initially envisioned a forward-thinking buyer, the home ultimately found a young family.
This result reinforced a core belief: when a home remains honest to itself, it creates space for true belonging. Benmore Terrace doesn’t try to please everyone. It offers something rarer: a feeling of arrival.
Preservation as responsibility
After losing her own home in the Palisades fires, Claire’s relationship with preservation became deeply personal. “Losing a home changes the way you understand what a home really is,” she reflects. “A lot of it is about memory, routine and refuge, not just materials or square footage. »
In a city where erasure is happening quickly, management takes on new urgency. Preserving a house like Benmore Terrace isn’t about freezing it in time, it’s about honoring the ideas embedded within it and ensuring they endure. By choosing preservation over reinvention, Claire has allowed this singular house to continue its conversation – with nature, with history, and with the people who now call it home.
Takeaways
Benmore Terrace reminds us that clarity comes not from adding more, but from greater attention. When a home stays true to its architecture, surroundings, and history, it creates space for something deeper than design trends or market appeal. Preservation, at its best, is an act of care: for the place, the memory and the lives that take place there. By choosing restraint over reinvention, Benmore Terrace shows how honoring what already exists can be the most sustainable form of modern living.
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