Pearlman Mountain Cabin

As many other buildings constructed by Lautner, the Pearlman Mountain Cabin is sometimes assigned as organic architecture, a term coined by Lautner's teacher Frank Lloyd Wright. The point of departure was a severely sloping forest property in the western San Jacinto Mountains at about 1800 meters altitude. Among numerous pine trees was a large boulder. Lautner decided to overbuild the boulder with a circular platform and to construct the cabin as a cylinder, its flat, overhanging roof being supported by tree trunks encircling the cabin. The valley-facing living room covers about half of the floor space of the building. Apart from the supporting tree trunks, its outer wall completely consists of glass windows that form a zigzag line roughly resembling a semi-circle. Since half of the entire wall of the building consists of glass windows the view of the visitor is automatically drawn to the landscape outside the house.^[3] Because of the large size and the unusual collocation of the windows the boundaries between inside and outside become blurred for the viewer.^[4] Towards the hillside a solid, semicircular wall with small windows confines the living room. Roof and facade have been designed to provide good acoustics inside, the trigger being that Agnes Pearlman was a talented pianist.^[5] From the cylinder-shaped living room doors lead to two annexes: A bathroom and an observation deck.

• Pearlman Mountain Cabin in the Pacific Coast Architecture Database (PCAD)
• Pearlman Mountain Cabin in the National Register of Historic Places

33°43′50″N 116°44′28″W / 33.73057°N 116.74101°W / 33.73057; -116.74101