Homes designed by architect Norm Applebaum have defined contemporary California architecture for 50 years. His work has been featured on HGTV and the Discovery Channel, and in numerous magazine and newspaper articles. Clients and architecture critics alike describe Applebaum's designs as "masterworks."

Applebaum's homes reflect the personality of their owners. The architect artfully combines clients' ideas and desires with sensitivity to the site, and the logical requirements of design, environment and function.

An Applebaum home becomes sculpture as cantilevered roof lines, clerestory glass, and transparent interiors come together. Structural steel and wood beams support soaring ceilings that appear to float. Interior spaces open into one another with intriguing interplays of shadow and light. Natural wood, concrete block and expanses of glass embrace the outdoors and create a sense of freedom.

Applebaum received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Arizona State University in 1968, and was mentored by the late Calvin Straub FAIA, professor of both University of Southern California and Arizona State University schools of architecture. As a friend and admirer of the late Cliff May, father of the California Ranch House, Applebaum learned to weave homes into their surroundings. He also studied under renowned architectural visionary Paolo Soleri for five years.

Applebaum offered clients the proven ability to create a timeless work of art exactly in tune with their needs.

Norm Applebaum, AIA, passed away on March 25, 2020. Among a long list of accomplishments, he received the Robert Mosher Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. His memory and work shall live on.

You are invited on a virtual tour of the unique studio of the architect. The Applebaum studio was featured in San Diego Home/Garden Magazine in June 2005. (Read article )

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Featured interview with KUSI's Joe Lizura, Decemember 2009.
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