Top home photo galleries for 2012

Some might have written off this house as a 1970s disaster, but not Los Angeles Modern Auctions owners Peter and Shannon Loughrey. They shared a look inside a most unusual design: twin dodecagons, 12-sided structures filled with intriguing spaces, valley views and rustic beauty. Full photo gallery  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

The Times scored an early peek inside the late philanthropist Walter Annenberg’s fabled 200-acre property in Rancho Mirage, publishing our photographic tour while Vanity Fair and other national media were still taking their pictures. The result is the first detailed look at what home is like when you’re worth $4 billion. Full photo gallery  (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

We wrote about the return of the show house in its many forms, including flip properties whose owners were shrewd enough to package them as design showcases. The fact that House of Rock developer Elaine Culotti threw parties that outraged neighbors only drew more people to the pictures. Full photo gallery  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

The writer’s goal was simply to shadow L.A.-based Jeff Andrews as he went about working with his client, Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, in Calabasas. The related gallery barely registered a traffic blip when first published in June 2011, and it didn’t make our annual list last year. But by the power of Google, Twitter and Web-surfing cubicle workers of America, it clawed its way to No. 6 on the list for 2012. Full photo gallery  (Bret Hartman / For the Times)

The headline asked the question: “How to squeeze 960 square feet of living space on a hemmed-in urban lot of just 780 square feet?” An Echo Park architect answered with a house that tapped into online readers’ hunger for features on small spaces. Full photo gallery  (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)

D’Acosta and Turrent’s experimental second home, partially made from a converted refrigerated truck trailer upended into a bedroom loft, was a bold, imaginative, off-the-grid hit. Full photo gallery  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

The swan song of the Times’ Home section featured a pair of homes by Baja architects Alejandro D’Acosta and Claudia Turrent. Their Ensenada house -- with walls made of soil, clay, gravel, sand, lime cement and horse dung -- scored with readers interested not only in green living but also residential architecture south of the border. Here, Turrent slides a cupboard door with a sailfish painted on it. Full photo gallery  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Originally published in December 2011, this story carried over to our 2012 charts thanks in part to a design that reflected the owners’ Chinese and Korean roots. The gallery continues to click with readers and is on its way to 2 million page views. Full photo gallery  (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Mass Architecture and Design’s makeover of Phi Sigma Kappa reflects the higher standard of living that many students now bring to higher education. The design: thoroughly modern and anti-”Animal House.” As part of our intro declared: “Goodbye, stripper pole. Hello, salad bar.” Full photo gallery  (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)