'60S REVIVAL ENCINO ARCHITECT SHARES HIS REVISION OF POP STARS' HOME.

Byline: Story by Sandra Barrera, Staff Writer

A railing in the backyard of Kenneth David Lee's Encino home sports the monogram of the celebrity couple who once lived there - "S" and "C."

For Sonny and Cher, the '60s modern-style home that boasts a stunning hilltop view of the San Fernando Valley was just a way station on the road to fame, fortune and the more rarified air of Holmby Hills.

Novelty aside, all that was incidental to Lee when the veteran architect decided

2 1/2 years ago to buy and remodel what was a partially fire-ravaged shell and make it his family's home.

"Anyone else would have torn down the house and I thought that was just a bad thing to happen, because it's a really decent '60s house and it just seemed to me that it would be better to save it," he says.

Furnished with an assortment of iconic pieces and witty art, the house now stands as an artifact of modernist '60s architecture, while at the same reflecting the kind of spacious interiors and sustainable design practices people have come to expect in today's market.

With support from his landscape architect daughter, Lee embarked on a seven-month remodel, working around the original footprint of the house with the exception of adding a frosted-glass storefront entryway and a 500-square-foot detached studio, both of which are accessible through the front courtyard.

"That was actually the genesis of the idea, that you'd enter into the house from a courtyard and reclaim this concrete driveway," says Lee, who was hired as the general contractor and architect by the couple who owned the house at the time, to deal with the insurance company and remodel after the fire.

The house lay in ruin from a garage fire that took out half of the structure. What wasn't gone was charred. Before construction had begun the couple announced they were selling the house as is.

So, Lee bought it.

One of the first orders of business was going ahead with the front courtyard in an area that used to be the curving cement driveway.

The area was enclosed to a small patio, complete with a drought-tolerant garden, dry riverbed and lively koi pond, with steps leading across it to Lee's studio.

"What was amazing about the front is there wasn't a bug or a bird, and as soon we put in the pond and a few plants there were dragonflies and frogs and hummingbirds and flies," says Catie Lee Casazza, who, at 28, is the younger of Lee's two daughters. "It's really become a whole ecosystem that didn't exist here before."

Though the courtyard sits on the street, it affords the Lees privacy from prying eyes given all the home's many glass panels. Yet from the moment visitors walk through the front door they are pushed toward the view.

Originally, the interior didn't take advantage of the home's sweeping vantage point. The bedrooms on one side of the house were separated from the master bedroom on the opposite side of the house by a series of walls.

But Lee resolved to open up the center of the house by reorganizing the sequence of space and creating a light-filled great room to accommodate dining and entertaining. The gourmet kitchen, with its impressive Sub-Zero Pro series refrigerator, is an extension of the airy space, although it can be closed off from the dining room with sliding doors.

In the master bedroom, Lee converted a closet into the master bath and put in a fireplace and spacious walk-in closet.

"His design approach to this house was taking the bones of it and making it function as a home again, and not necessarily change everything but re-adapting it," Casazza says.

"That is really critical. Why remodel for the sake of remodeling if it adds nothing to the house," adds Lee, who stands on the restored original wood deck next to his daughter as she recalls how they butted heads over the pool, which now features a raised spa with spillway.

Casazza wanted to rip out the pool, with its scalloped corners, and replace it with a smaller, rectangular version.

Lee insisted it stay.

"His comment was, 'It works! Why take it out?"' she says.

Still, the house has its share of dramatic re-dos in the interest of energy efficiency.

Lee retrofitted the roof with 54 solar panels and fully insulated the house, which he also equipped with Low-E windows, a tank-less water heater and energy-efficient furnaces. The pool is solar-heated and its pump boasts a high-efficiency motor.

In the yard, low-water rotor sprinkler heads and a WeatherTrak irrigation system that schedules watering by satellite based on local weather conditions, contributes to the overall effectiveness of the green upgrades.

Even the koi pond pulls double duty.

"The koi pond cools the studio whenever the afternoon breeze blows across it," Lee says. "Those kinds of things really help make it as energy-efficient as is reasonable."

Though Lee has made many changes to the home, it was equally important to him to keep its history alive.

It was after their first big hit, "I Got You Babe," in 1965 and before "The Beat Goes On" that Sonny and Cher occupied the single-level, flat-roof home in the hills, according to "Hollywood Songsters: Allyson to Funicello," by James Robert Parish and Michael R. Pitts. Lyndon Johnson was still in the White House, Vietnam was escalating and the Summer of Love was on the horizon.

And Sonny and Cher were the hottest couple in rock, considered "morally subversive" in some conservative communities, in the words of Bruce Eder of the All Music Guide.

"I don't know if its urban myth or not, but there are several people who've claimed Cher, apparently wearing nothing but her hair, would come down the waterslide waving to the neighbors," Lee says, sounding amused.

A rare glimpse of that spirit can be found in the 1967 musical comedy "Good Times," part of which was filmed at the house.

The thick shag rug and beaded curtains seen in that monumental flop are long gone. And the only signpost linking this home to Sonny and Cher is the monogram on the railing.

As Lee puts it, "How could you get rid of it?"

Sandra Barrera, 818-713-3728

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CAPTION(S):

8 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Architect Kenneth David Lee recreated his Encino home to preserve its 1960s architecture while introducing contemporary features that include solar panels, a solar-heated pool and energy-efficient windows.

(2 -- 3 -- color) Above, a striped plexiglass wall hanging in the dining room. Below, a trio of more humorous art pieces, including a black Elvis and a map of the U.S. constructed from license plates.

(4 -- color) A backyard railing with the initials "S" and "C" is the only signpost linking Lee's home to Sonny and Cher, who lived in the single-level, hilltop house in the mid-'60s. (5 -- 8 -- color) Clockwise, from top: The gourmet kitchen, with Sub-Zero refrigerator, doubles as a gathering place with a table and office nook; the airy great room accommodates dining and entertaining; Lee, accompanied by his dog, Kugel, feeds koi in the pond outside his studio; a pair of chairs and an ottoman/side table from the Richard Schultz Topiary collection.

Photos by Hans Gutknecht Staff Photographer