Charles Arnoldi’s Malibu beach house, the ultimate artist’s canvas

A clean simplicity rules the Malibu home of artist Charles Arnoldi and wife, Katie, a novelist. He designed the house as well as most of its furniture, including an aluminum dining table topped with a small Calder sculpture. Arnold Schwarzenegger liked the table so much that he commissioned one for himself, Charles says. Outside the window is the silhouette of an aloe tree, backed by a sunset over the Pacific. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

July 15, 2013 2:29 PM PT

Spare and simple is the rule in the oceanfront home of Arnoldi and his wife, Katie, a novelist. He designed the house as well as most of its furniture. When they wanted to remake the backyard, no worries: Just drive that bulldozer through the living room.

The Arnoldis recently redesigned their landscape facing the ocean. They added a fire pit and replaced lawn with a sculptural cactus garden. Fifteen-foot-tall glass doors open to the living room and are echoed by identical glass doors on the opposite side of the house; to install gravel in the new cactus garden, a dump truck simply drove from the front of the house, through the living room and into the back of the property. In background, Charles Arnoldi plays with his English bulldog Ruby. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

On a living room wall hangs one of Charles Arnoldi’s newest paintings, a patchwork of color. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

A leaping fish made of milky glass scales is actually a lamp by the Arnoldis’ friend Frank Gehry. The light bulbs are concealed inside. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Charles and Katie Arnoldi in their living room, with the kitchen in the background. They call their home a true beach house — casual, comfortable and impervious to anything the dogs and their two teenagers might track in. The home’s original hand-troweled concrete floors have never needed refinishing. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The master bedroom upstairs has a deck overlooking the ocean and a giant swiveling window that opens to the living room below. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The main living space is open and airy, with oversized red leather furniture that Charles Arnoldi designed and a connection to the coastline. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Trees and other garden elements take on a sculptural quality throughout the property. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

The house sits like a blank canvas at land’s end, the glass doors forming an aperture — a peekaboo view of the ocean beyond. In the foreground: one of Charles Arnoldi’s potato sculptures. (Carlos Chavez / Los Angeles Times)

Lifestyle