A look inside the US$9.3 million LA mansion, restored to mid-century perfection
It had the same owners for more than 40 years. Here’s why that’s a mixed bag
Anyone who’s driven through the Hollywood Hills has marvelled at the mansions that dangle off the mountainside, perched on nothing more than spindly support beams and thin air. What voyeurs (and commuters) will have missed, though, is a certain mid-century compound, hidden behind a gate and landscaping, that sits on a miraculous plateau –1.25 acres (54,450 square feet) of nearly flat ground.
The house, which has four bedrooms and four baths spread across around 4,500 square feet of living space, was built in 1959 by architect Eugene Kinn Choy. He designed various houses in the style of modernist architects Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler, but distinguished himself by making houses that were quite liveable.
This one, intended for a nuclear family (the Branders), was zoned to include a tennis court. The Branders were horticulturally minded though, and instead opted for a large rose garden.
When photographer Erica Martin’s parents bought the house in 1973, though, her mother, a judge, “was really into tennis”, Martin says, and duly bulldozed the gardens to install a fenced-in court. Her parents also modestly increased the house’s footprint by widening a wing; aside from enlarging the kitchen, they kept things basically the way Choy had envisioned.
“They loved the style of the house,” Martin says. “I don’t think they were thinking of it as architecturally significant – remember, for them, it was a contemporary.”
There was one exception to the house’s clean lines: Martin’s father, a lawyer, installed a “traditional Irish pub in the den”, she says. “There was wood panelling hanging down. It looked like a miniature set for Cheers.”
Her parents lived there for the next 30 years. Over time, as their needs, taste, and styles changed, they made minor interventions, bringing the house further from its original look.
Her mother died in 2005 and her father, in 2009.