One of Los Angeles' most fascinating houses was the House of Davids in Hancock Park. The house's owner was an eccentric record producer who had a distinct "flare" for decorating. His neighbors in the tony neighborhood did not care for his taste at all but it stop him from covering his home with copies of Michelangelo's David.
The edgy owner decided to sell and move out of the area but not before unloading his Davids and other Bric-a-Brac at a huge yard sale. Well sadly the hose was sold and it is now back on the market. I am sure the neighbor's love it but LA has lost a treasure. The House of Davids is now a rather bland nondescript big old tract house.
There was a period in Los Angeles when fairy tale architecture was all the rage. What fairy tale architecture is is something that could only happen in Hollywood the land of make believe. These were homes and businesses that were built in the style of homes in fairy tales; they have the look of a house that Hansel and Gretel might just live in. One of the most famous is the Witch's House (actually known as the Spandena house) located in the very glam Beverly Hills. It was built in 1921 by a Hollywood art director named Harry Oliver for a film company in Culver City. The house was moved to its current location in 1934 where it became the family home of the Spandena family. It was originally surrounded by a moat and intentionally overgrown looking English style garden. The Spandena family lived there unti selling it in the 1960's. the house slowly fell into disrepair and in the 1990's it was once again up for sale. The location is a prime spot in Beverly Hills ( the corner of Carmelita and Walden Drives) and most people were interested in buying it as a tear down. Local Realtor Michael Libow bought the house and started restoring it. He put up a large wall around the property that caused a local uproar as the neighbor's assume he was tearing it down. The house now it completely restored and a beloved local landmark. It can also be seen in the movie Clueless. It is a must see when visiting Beverly Hills.
Zsa Zsa Gabor and her ersatz Prince husband have reached a sale agreement for their Bel Air home. The agreement sells the house for eleven million dollars and allows Gabor and her paramour to live in the house to the end of Zsa Zsa's life or three years which ever is longer. This would keep Zsa Zsa in her home until she is 102 years old. Zsa Zsa who his been in ill health and on death's door for the past several years will live out her remaining days in the glamour that she has always been accustomed to. The house itself has been getting a lot of work lately, it was used in the film Argo and in the HBO movie "Behind the Candelabra" about Liberace.
This of course isn't the end to all of the Gabor's legal problems. Francesca Hilton, Zsa Zsa's daughter, and Frederic Prinz Van Anhalt the ersatz prince of a husband are still at war over Zsa Zsa health care and cash.
If you want to live the glamorous and chic life like a celebrity like say Danny Bonaduce this is your chance! Danny is renting out his home in the Los Feliz Hills section of Los Angeles. The Spanish style house is now available for a mere $18,000 a month! Yes you too could live like Danny Partridge. The house built on a half an acre promontory over looks downtown LA and Hollywood. Built in the style of a Spanish hacienda Danny's house has over 7,000 square feet of living space. There is a screen room and a small pool. But beware you can be spied upon by the nosy neighbors!!!
If you have a spare 45 million dollars have I got a house for you! It is in the very elegant South Palms Springs neighborhood and it was once the home of a bonafide celebrity. The house designed by architectural superstar John Lautner in 1973 but wasn't built until 1976. Well it was almost built but it burned to the ground just before the original completion and had to be rebuilt from the ground up. But who was the celebrity??? It was none other than Bob Hope. Hope and his wife Dolores had the house built to their specifications and it is a quirky house to say the least. The spaceship shaped two story house has 22,000 square feet and a mushroom like roof. It also incorporated natural elements like a huge boulder in the living room. Hope and his wife built the house for just over 2 million dollars. This is the first time it has been on the market as Dolores Hope lived there until her death last year. She was 102.
The house has six bedrooms and ten bathrooms and is next to another Coachella Valley architectural icon the Elrod house.
"Keep Building!" That was the mantra for 38 years in San Jose, California's Winchester House. The house owned by Sarah Winchester has roughly 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 2 ballrooms, 10,000 windows and 13 bathrooms.
Mrs Sarah Winchester was born Sarah Lockwood Pardee in 1839 in New Haven, Connecticut. She married William Winchester the only son and heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. They had one child a daughter named Annie. The Winchester's daughter died as an infant and shortly thereafter William Winchester died of tuberculosis. This set Mrs. Winchester into a downward spiral of depression. She came to believe she was cursed, seeking the help of a Boston medium thought to be a psychic. The psychic told her she was cursed by the ghosts of the people killed by Winchester rifles. The only way she could lead a normal life was to move west and build a house for her and the spirits.
Mrs. Winchester bought an eight room farm house on 161 acres of land from a man named John Hamm in what would become San Jose in 1866. Then the building commenced and continued 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 38 years until the day of her death. Mrs. Winchester did not hire an architect only builders and would create the plans on her own by entering her seance room and consulting the spirits. This created a chaotic and extremely eccentric floor plan with staircases and doors that lead to nowhere and windows looking onto walls and interior rooms.
After the 1906 Mrs. Winchester was trapped for several hours in her bedroom and took this as a sign that she had spent too much time in decorating the house and not enough in construction. She had the carpenters board up the front of the house without repairing the damage. It was after this the true eccentricity of the construction began. Staircases to ceilings and doors that opened to brick walls were installed it is thought to confuse bad spirits.
When Mrs. Winchester finally died in 1922 all construction stopped. In her will she left the house and its contents to a niece who took what she wanted from the house and then sold off the rest of the contents. It took eight truck loads a day for six weeks to empty the house. It was then sold off to the highest bidder who opened it as a tourist attraction five months after Mrs. Winchester's death.
