“Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.” So sang Frank Sinatra in his hit 1964 tune “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words).” Well, the celebrated crooner may never have actually made it up into space, but a house he is said to have rented for close to a decade certainly allowed him to see what spring was like from high above L.A.!
Situated at the end of an almost mile-long driveway atop a secluded promontory overlooking virtually all of the San Fernando Valley, Byrdview, as the property is known, was originally constructed for New York heiress Dora Stillman and her husband, actor Jody Hutchinson, in 1951. To build their midcentury castle in the sky, the couple commissioned Pereira & Luckman, the firm behind such famed sites as the Disneyland Hotel, CBS Television City and the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport.
The architects took full advantage of the stunning clifftop location, outfitting the residence with 16-foot windows and sliders at virtually every turn to highlight the unobstructed 360-degree views. As described by a 1952 St. Albans Daily Messenger article, Byrdview, which is also known as Farralone and Fox House, was “movie town’s most lavish mansion in years, a 750-thousand dollar glass palace.”
Consisting of a 6,661-square-foot main home with four bedrooms and six baths, plus a one-bedroom, two-bath, 1,120-square-foot guest house complete with its own pool, as well as a standalone gym and an entire suite of offices, in truth the property is more of a compound than a simple residence.
An entertainer’s dream, the pad, located at 9361 Farralone Ave. in Chatsworth, has floated on and off the market numerous times over the past decade and was just recently listed once again by Craig Knizek of The Agency and Barrie Livingstone of Sotheby’s International Realty for a cool $21.5 million. So Ol’ Blue Eyes’ old digs can now be yours once again! (Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.)
