In the 1989 action movie "Lethal Weapon 2," Mel Gibson's character hitches a striking Hollywood Hills home to his pickup truck with cables and accelerates, dragging the home down the hill. It's a fantasy occasionally shared by the home's real-life owners, John McIlwee and Bill Damaschke.  Built in 1962 the home sits on stilts 60 feet above the canyon ground.  After paying $1.3 million for the 2,300-square-foot home, the couple plunged into a complex, multiyear renovation that cost roughly $1 million more—at one point Mr. McIlwee camped out in a sleeping bag to oversee construction. Maintenance for the unusually constructed home is constant, and can be a chore.  But the couple see the headaches as the price for living in an architectural icon. Designed by John Lautner, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright and one of Southern California's most celebrated architects, the house is considered by curators one of the 10 most important residences from the midcentury period in Los Angeles. Mr. Lautner's eldest daughter, Karol Lautner Peterson, said Messrs. McIlwee and Damaschke's home is one of the most photographed of her father's works.  Jutting out over a steep cliff, Messrs. McIlwee and Damaschke's home is a space-age swoop, with 30 feet of windows overlooking the canyon below. A spiral staircase divides the space, with a private bedroom and office wing on one side, a kitchen and dining area extending into a spacious living room on the other. The living and dining area is walls of glass that contrast against lava rock walls and gray terrazzo floors. The white curved ceiling tops off at 30 feet.  The couple turned to an eclectic set of materials for their interiors, looking to materials popular in the late 1960s and 1970s—like Lucite and onyx—rather than the more delicate aesthetic from when the home was built in 1962. In the master bedroom, pelts of rabbit fur stitched together cover the bed as a comforter; an octagon-shaped piece of bone serves as a nightstand. Lucite furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones designed a new four-post Lucite bed for the couple. A Lucite coffee table that Mr. Jones designed for the Learjet aircraft family in 1960s sits in the living room. In the master bathroom, the couple used honey onyx and glass tiles—both popular materials in the 1970s—for the countertops and cabinetry. The bathtub overlooks the canyon through a large window.  They also weren't afraid to select furniture larger in scale. "It's a preconception with a modern house that everything in it has to be really small," said Mr. Damaschke, 48-year-old chief creative officer at movie studio DreamWorks Animation, noting the 15-seat couch that anchors the living room.  Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation and Mr. Damaschke's boss, said he was surprised by how smoothly the couple has blended the home's historic character with an updated look. "The house is one of the singular landmark pieces of real estate that exist in Los Angeles, but what's really incredible is how both Bill and John have managed to preserve its 20th-century uniqueness while also making it feel of the moment, livable and comfortable," he added.  The couple bought the home in 2002 from actor and artist Vincent Gallo, beating out several other bids for the 1.2-acre property, including one from designer Trina Turk. The couple met with Mr. Gallo for a three-hour lunch, after which he sold them the home. A 3,648-square-foot, four-bedroom house nearby on Mulholland Drive is asking $1.3 million.  To preserve the home's historic flavor, Mr. McIlwee and Mr. Damaschke looked at Mr. Lautner's original drawings for the property, kept in the Getty archives. The couple removed and replaced the home's parabola-shaped roof, stripped away dozens of layers of paint, ripped out a prior owner's black Formica bathroom, reverted the master bedroom to Mr. Lautner's original floor plan and redid a guest bedroom. To oversee the renovation, Mr. McIlwee, a 45-year-old Hollywood business manager who doles out financial advice to clients such as Ben Stiller and Selma Blair, camped out for more than a month, reading by flashlight and showering at the gym. Mr. Damaschke chose to sleep at a friend's guesthouse instead.  The original plans called for a pool that the home's original owners couldn't build because they ran out of money. Using those plans, Messrs. McIlwee and Damaschke built out a concrete terrace below the house and carved out a pool in the shape of an ellipse—one of Mr. Lautner's trademark designs.  Even after the redo, the work continues. Tasks such as changing a light bulb demand ladders and specialized handymen because of the home's curved ceiling. Replacing a window pane requires extensive scaffolding because the home sits on stilts, about 60 feet above the steep canyon ground. "Vince [Gallo] told us this house would change our lives," said Mr. McIlwee, "and that's 100% true, mostly because I now spend so much time maintaining it."  Actress Courteney Cox, a longtime client of Mr. McIlwee who until 2007 owned a home designed by Mr. Lautner, said she and Mr. McIlwee have bonded over the ups and downs of keeping up such an architecturally-complex house. "John and I share a love of remodeling and often spend hours discussing the fun and frustrating parts," she said. "Obviously, when you have a house as special as a Lautner, you always maintain its integrity."  A version of this article appeared May 25, 2012, on page D6 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Reviving a Hollywood Icon.
A couple undertake an arduous renovation to update an architecturally significant Hollywood Hills home designed by John Lautner.