Construction Diary: A Ceramicist Gets Hands-On While Renovating Her Midcentury Home

After a decade of living and renting in (now prohibitively expensive) Los Angeles, Ren von Hasseln and her husband, Kyle, set their sights on buying a home in Ojai—a small town two hours north of the city, where New Age sensibilities meet the foot of the Topatopa Mountains.

When they closed on their 1956, three-bedroom ranch house, the property was worse for wear, with threadbare carpeting, an overgrown yard, and an inexplicable hole in the kitchen ceiling. Ren, a ceramicist with a degree in architecture, took the lead in the overhaul, intent on designing a home that would include a studio for her wares, as she explains here.

CLOSING THE DEAL

When we bought the house in 2018, it was really beat up. But what drew me to it were the oaks on the property and the irregular footprint—the house is two feet wider on one end. As soon as I saw it, I pictured this masonry feature going from the exterior to the interior, and I started to get excited.