“Christian Bale and Matt Damon were here” isn’t exactly a standard real estate sales pitch, but Ryan Sypek and Tristan Fong of Compass can certainly tout that factoid with their current listing, a charming bungalow in Los Angeles’ Highland Park neighborhood that served as the home of Bale’s expert race car driver/mechanic character Ken Miles in the 2019 drama “Ford v Ferrari.”
Directed by James Mangold, the film, which earned a Best Picture Oscar nod, centers around Miles and fellow racer/automotive designer Carroll Shelby (Damon), who, in a quest to beat Ferrari at the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, band together to devise an elite GT sports car for the Ford Motor Company. Based upon a true story, the movie required production designer François Audouy (who was also behind the looks of “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” “The Wolverine” and “Logan”) to painstakingly re-create such famed spots as Dearborn, Michigan’s Ford World Headquarters, the original Ferrari factory in Maranello, Italy, Florida’s Daytona International Speedway and the Le Mans racetrack, all largely within the confines of Southern California. (A couple of sites in Georgia were also utilized in the film and one brief scene was shot on location in France.)
But, incredibly, per the Los Angeles Times, “The most complicated physical location was the neighborhood garage where racer Miles tries to make a living between races, fixing other people’s cars. Mangold insisted that the garage be physically right across the street from the little bungalow where Miles lives with his wife and son — so that, literally, Miles can see his house from the shop, and his wife can see him working from her front porch.” The director found precisely what he was looking for on a sleepy triangular block of Highland Park, where a quaint Craftsman home sits perched above the street adjacent to an auto repair shop, a grocery store and a small park.
Located at 6311 Meridian St., the 1909 bungalow hit the market in mid-May at a cool $1.25 million and is currently under contract, having entered escrow just a scant 28 days later! Charming through and through, it is not hard to see why buyers were racing to make an offer on the three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,574-square-foot pad – though the place looked quite a bit different before the “Ford v Ferrari” production team got their hands on it. (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
