A Living Room With a View

The main living area of the Wirsching house is really one large room. A low, thick-walled divider painted a mustard color separates the kitchen from the living room and provides one of the few actual walls in the main areas of the house. When designed by the late architect George Bissell in the early 1960s, the homes employed the design credo of integrating the indoors with the outdoors. When the homes in the Laguna Niguel tract (at one time part of south Laguna Beach) were built, surrounding land was mostly undeveloped. This allowed ocean views from most of the homes, so in place of walls, Bissell designed floor to ceiling glass windows and sliding doors.