ARCHITECTURE > Bohemia, with a killer view

LATIMES.COM: With Schindler as her inspiration and Eastside grunge as her muse, Barbara Bestor is spreading her brand of funky Modernism across Silver Lake -- and beyond.

BARBARA BESTOR'S office is hiding. Camouflaged in ever-changing murals on a gritty stretch of Fountain Avenue in Silver Lake, the building has only one formal sign, and it reads "Hair" — a leftover from the beauty salon that used to occupy the site.

It's not what one might expect of an emerging architect in arguably the city's hippest neighborhood, but that's Bestor: as hard to define as L.A.'s evolving Eastside. Schooled in Modernism at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, later hired by the Beastie Boys and the Dust Brothers, and now relied upon by two young daughters, Bestor manages to fuse street culture with high design, building homes that are full of bohemian chic yet conscious of the realities of everyday living. At 39, she is among a new generation of architects redefining not only what this part of Los Angeles will look like for decades to come, but also how its residents will live.