The first night Jason and Michell Rubell spent in their new Los Angeles home, they slept on a mattress on the floor, under sheets gifted by their realtor. It was April 2022, and they had closed earlier that day on the sleek, single-story property, designed by Richard Neutra for the choreographer Eugene Loring in 1958. "In the morning," recalls Michelle, "we woke up and both said, 'It is a privilege to be in this house.'"
“It’s beyond a house,” Jason chimes in. “It’s kind of like living inside of a sculpture. It has an attitude. It has a personality.” The couple, who often eagerly complete each other’s sentences, exude a childlike wonder at the bounteous gifts that life has bestowed on them.
Since he was a teenager, Jason has worked closely with his parents—trailblazing Miami collectors Don and Mera Rubell—to grow the family collection and establish the Rubell Family Museum, alongside his work as vice president of Rubell Hotels. While Michelle also hails from a prominent Miami family, it was only after her marriage to Jason, in 1999, that she became immersed in the world of contemporary art.
Strange as it is to admit, Michelle says that the property was an impulse buy. The pair had not planned to purchase a house in LA, but after visiting the west-facing Nichols Canyon home one evening at sunset, they fell in love. “It was crazy!” she says. “We said to each other, ‘If we can do this, it would be magical.’”
“It’s so simple, yet so thought-out,” Jason says of the home’s classic “boxcar” design. Neutra is known for architectural minimalism that celebrates the abundant light, landscape views, and vegetation of Southern California. One side of the building consists almost entirely of sliding glass doors, which open onto the pool and landscaped gardens beyond. “It’s amazing,” Jason adds. “Neutra took these small spaces and made them so grand.”
The property ultimately comprises the work of three architects. In the 1980s, its owner commissioned Culver City–based Steven Ehrlich to design a double-height guesthouse on the grounds, one of Ehrlich’s first projects. More recently, the firm Escher GuneWardena—which specializes in historical renovations—designed a master bedroom addition to the 1958 house based on Neutra’s archival plans.
The Rubells have long-cherished connections to Los Angeles, even if they still call Miami home. Jason was born there, the couple was married there, and their son Samuel now attends college in the city. At the Rubell Museum in Miami, an exhibition recently opened titled “Singular Views: Los Angeles,” which brings together 16 LA-based artists with diverse perspectives on their city. Many, like Diana Yesenia Alvarado, Nehemiah Cisneros, and Savannah Claudia Levin, are emerging talents, while others, such as Thomas Houseago, are seasoned figures in the Rubells’ collection.
In fact, a young Houseago was featured in “Red Eye,” an early but important exhibition of LA art mounted by the Rubells in 2006, establishing the family’s commitment to the city. Michelle and Jason now count the sculptor as a “dear friend.” He is one of many artists, dealers, and curators they turn to for guidance in navigating LA’s fast-evolving art scene.
They use their Nichols Canyon home to display some of the work they have acquired from local artists, such as the striking painting by Trulee Hall of a blue-skinned woman cradling a tiger. On the whole, it is a minimalist hang—especially, says Jason, compared with their art-filled Miami base.
“LA has always felt like a real hotbed—all the great art schools, the tradition, the different generations that are mixing and blending,” he reasons. “The creative class drives the city. It’s very energizing.” As the often-challenging work in “Singular Views” demonstrates, however, LA has its complexities and contradictions. “It’s a gritty town. It’s a tough town, it has edge,” Jason says. “It’s not just palm trees and beaches.”
I ask the couple what they learn from artists. What compels them to spend hours navigating LA’s backstreets and freeways, traipsing from galleries to studios, museums to dinners? “Art is an amazing way to open your eyes to other people’s points of view,” Jason responds without hesitation. “In times like this, art is so vital. It’s one of the few mediums we can use to communicate with each other in a meaningful way.”
INTERIOR DESIGN by Monica Fried.
