Once proclaimed “the most modern house built in the world,” Chemosphere, completed in 1960 by architect John Lautner, still stuns. A sprawling octagonal folly perched atop a stout concrete pylon like a model of a UFO, the structure—reached by way of a vertiginous funicular—is ringed by windows overlooking the urbanized San Fernando Valley on one side and a wild thicket of vegetation on the other. The unorthodox design resulted, in part, from the 45-degree slope of its challenging site. Given the