Residential Architect in Santa Monica CA

Designing a home by the ocean means balancing artistry with technical mastery. At Dean Larkin Design, we understand how to maximize light, views, and context to create luxury residences that feel both timeless and deeply personal. As a residential architect in Santa Monica CA, we bring decades of experience transforming premier sites into architectural statements of sophistication and ease.

Points of interest in Santa Monica include:

• Santa Monica Pier & Looff Hippodrome — a historic amusement pier and carousel building, symbolizing the city’s cultural life
• Third Street Promenade — a walkable downtown shopping and dining district
• Palisades Park — a bluff-top park with sweeping ocean vistas, walking paths, and gardens
• Santa Monica Camera Obscura — a historic oceanfront attraction that continues to intrigue visitors
• The Georgian Hotel — an iconic Ocean Avenue landmark known for its Art Deco presence and coastal elegance

These places underscore Santa Monica’s dual identity as an urban coastal hub and a haven for relaxation, recreation, and culture.

Santa Monica’s architecture is diverse and layered, reflecting its coastal setting and long development arc.

• Spanish Colonial Revival & Mediterranean Revival: Stucco walls, red-tile roofs, arcades, and courtyard planning remain hallmarks across landmarked and vernacular buildings from the 1920s–30s.
• Craftsman Bungalows: Early 20th-century wood-crafted houses with deep porches, tapered columns, and expressive joinery still anchor quieter residential streets and historic districts.
• Mid-Century Modern & Ranch Homes: Post-war housing introduced open plans, indoor–outdoor living, car-forward site planning, and low, horizontal rooflines—visible citywide and in emblematic civic work of the period.
• Contemporary Coastal Modern: Current custom homes and renovations favor expansive glazing, minimal detailing, and terraces oriented to ocean light and prevailing breezes—an evolution of the region’s modernist DNA.

From classic revival styles to sleek modernist expressions, Santa Monica provides both heritage and innovation—an architectural environment that rewards thoughtful, context-sensitive design.

In Santa Monica, we pay attention to environment: the ocean climate, the city’s pedestrian scale, and strict planning codes. Our approach includes:

• Indoor–Outdoor Flow: We design spaces that dissolve boundaries, creating fluid connections between interiors and gardens, terraces, or pool decks
• Maximizing Light and Views: We orient homes to capture natural light and ocean vistas while preserving privacy and intimacy
• Coastal Resilience: Material selection emphasizes durability and climate sensitivity—glass, steel, and concrete balanced with stone, wood, and plaster
• Respect for Neighborhood: With height limits and contextual requirements shaping Santa Monica homes, we ensure projects feel both personal and refined, expressing luxury while following local regulations
• Sustainable Practice: Passive and natural lighting strategies, energy-efficient systems, and environmentally conscious materials are fundamental to our design process

Architecture, for us, is never arbitrary. It begins with intention and culminates in spaces that are personal, timeless, and deeply connected to their site. In Santa Monica, this means designing homes that embrace natural light, ocean views, and effortless flow between indoors and out.

Our process is collaborative from start to finish. We listen carefully to your aspirations, respond to the constraints and possibilities of your lot, and translate both into a home that feels destined for its place by the sea.

Since 1999, Dean Larkin Design has crafted luxury residences throughout Southern California. This modern architecture firm maximizes the intrinsic potential of a location while meeting each client’s specific lifestyle, business or institutional needs. Dean Larkin Design is very familiar with both historical and contemporary homes in So Cal and the entire Los Angeles area. For a residential Architect in Santa Monica CA whose design is modern and innovative, unlocks your location’s innate potential by making specific use of light, views and more, and is uniquely designed for the way you live, contact us for a consultation.