Mid-Century Modern Freak

Swedish born Greta Magnusson Grossman (1906-1999) maintained a prolific forty-year career on two continents, Europe and North America, with award-winning achievements in industrial design, interior design and architecture.

In 1940 she opened her own shop in Beverly Hills that featured lamps, rugs, and furniture she designed. It attracted celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Joan Fontaine, and Gracie Allen. Her name was becoming well known and continued to design for other companies with great success until the late 1940s.

Grossman’s most enduring work in Los Angeles came in the form of her built architectural commissions. Between 1949 and 1959 Grossman designed at least fourteen homes in Los Angeles, one in San Francisco and one back in her native Sweden. Of these, at least ten are still standing. The homes were often perched on stilts at the top of a hill, overlooking a canyon, with magnificent views through curtain walls of glass. The homes featured extensive built-in shelving and the uniquely open and free flowing floor plan popular at the time. She retired from design and architecture in the late 1960s.

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