Venice architects bridge generations with two-home design

Love of place more than space rooted Julie Smith-Clementi and Frank Clementi to their 600-square-foot, 1920s cottage and its sociable walk street in Venice.

The architect couple settled here in 1994 and two years later added a second floor, preserving the original footprint and situating the master bedroom to face west, toward the neighbor’s huge Southern magnolia, said by locals to be nearly 80 years old.

The Clementis, partners in the Los Angeles design firm Rios Clementi Hale Studios, watched anxiously over the years as experts assessed whether the tree next door could be removed to make room for a larger house. “They measured to see how much it would cost to get rid of,” Smith-Clementi said. “There was nothing we could do but hope it wouldn’t happen.”