Oscar Wilde famously wrote in his 1889 Socratic dialogue format essay “The Decay of Lying” that “life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” However, in the case of a vintage midcentury home tucked into the affluent foothills of L.A.’s popular and ever-more pricy Studio City community, art — or a primetime sitcom, at any rate — sometimes does indeed mimic real life.
In the unconventionally structured ensemble sitcom “Life in Pieces,” canceled in 2019 after four seasons, Zoe Lister-Jones’ character, tightly wound attorney and new mom Jen Short, resided with her husband and new baby in a modestly sized and stylishly appointed midcentury residence that’s curiously similar to a low-slung midcentury home that Lister-Jones and her real-life actor/filmmaker husband and creative partner Daryl Wein now have on the market at a sliver less $1.3 million.
Lister-Jones and Wein, who co-wrote, co-directed and co-produced the star-studded dark comedy “How It Ends,” which was shot across L.A. “renegade style” during the pandemic, made its premiere earlier this year at Sundance and in which Lister-Jones also co-stars, acquired the time-capsule of a home about 5.5-years ago for $855,000. Digital records indicate the couple has frequently used the just shy of 1,500-square-foot flat-roofed home as a rental, initially setting it out for lease just a few months after they bought it at $4,500 per month. Since then the price has fluctuated between $3,950 and $4,800 per month, and it was most recently available in 2019 at $4,500 per month.
A pumpkin-orange door makes a plucky statement in the otherwise unassuming and unpretentiously landscaped two-bedoom and two-bath home’s street facade that’s painted a fashionable medium grey shade with inky black trim work around the windows and double-car garage
The property is available through Karen Medved and Lynda Kahn, both at Compass.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com Inside, many midcentury tropes remain in evidence. There are painted wood beams across the ceiling in the living room, huge plate glass picture windows that frame cinematic views of the gardens and strategically placed clerestory windows for additional ambient light and privacy. A three-sided whitewashed brick fireplace juts out from the wall between the wood-floored living room and flagstone-paved dining area.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The kitchen has heaps of natural light thanks to a huge window over the sink and a clever row of windows that serve as a transparent backsplash behind the stove top and beneath the upper cabinets. Still, functional and well maintained as it all may be, the original cabinets, boring beige ceramic floor tiles and average-quality appliances, not to mention the faux-wood grain laminate counters and the uninspired lighting fixtures, could all use some swapping out and gussying up.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com A petite den or potential third bedroom lies just inside the front door with private access to a small bathroom emblazoned with blue tiles in the stall shower.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The two other bedrooms are somewhat larger, one with a closet lined dressing area and backyard access, and both with direct access to a clean and tidy Jack ‘n’ Jill bathroom with outdated cabinets and fixtures.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com An unexpectedly oversized laundry room just off the kitchen leads to a sizable side yard nestled up against a steep hillside planted with a tangle of trees and foliage.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The desirably flat and simply landscaped backyard includes a great sweep of gravel dotted with succulents, a small covered area outside one of largest of the home’s bedrooms, and a stone dining terrace embraced by the obtuse angle of the unusually angled living and dining areas.
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Image Credit: Realtor.com The floor plan show the unconventional arrangement of rooms in the relatively compact home.
Lister-Jones and Wein don’t appear to be leaving Studio City, at least not quite yet. The midcentury aficionados have owned another, slightly larger and more architecturally notable neighboring residence since 2012, when it was acquired for $1.45 million. The glass-walled 1953 post-and-beam stunner, with just two bedrooms and two and a half baths plus terrazzo floors, a giant masonry fireplace and a swimming pool in the backyard, was designed by noted by SoCal architect and educator Calvin Straub — the unquestionably accomplished though least illustrious partner at the acclaimed firm Buff, Straub & Hensman — and photographed by Julius Shulman for California Homes Magazine.