“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.)
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Image Credit: Zillow Very few listings can legitimately profess that everyone from Judy Garland to Jon Hamm to Beyoncé has graced a property’s halls, but such is the case with Byrdview thanks to its famous former owners, as well as its prominent use as a film and television location.
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Image Credit: Zillow The parties Dora and Jody held at the home over the years were legendary by all accounts, with the couple even going so far as to shoot off fireworks to alert neighbors it was time for Happy Hour, according to Forbes!
Along with Garland, just a few of the luminaries invited to soirees on the premises include Angela Lansbury, Jane Wyman, Lucille Ball, Ava Gardner and Vincente Minnelli. Frank Sinatra was also said to be a frequent guest and when Dora and Jody returned to the East Coast in the mid-50s, they reportedly leased Byrdview to the singer for the next decade.
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Image Credit: Zillow Whether the legend of his long-term occupancy is true or not, the property is certainly befitting the Chairman of the Board! A midcentury dream, the main residence features sharp glass angles, poured concrete and hardwood flooring, floating cabinets, a plethora of built-ins and multiple wood-burning fireplaces.
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Image Credit: Zillow Outside on the massive 13.72-acre lot are several grassy expanses, a three-car garage, parking for more than 200 cars and a vineyard. The pool is easily the property’s most famous and oft-shot feature, though. Surrounded by a flagstone patio and what the listing describes as a 2,000-square-foot “pergola lounge,” the sparkling oasis represents midcentury living at its most stylish!
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Image Credit: Zillow Byrdview truly is a backdrop like no other – and location managers have certainly taken note! It is so popular a shooting site that according to a 2011 Forbes article, the place has generated as much as $2 million in annual film revenue and, at the time, boasted “a property manager who acts as a liaison with the studios, paid for by the studios” as well as “a lower level production studio equipped with conference room, edit bays, private office and a separate entrance, all paid for and maintained by the studios.” Even getting in to see the property might prove difficult for interested buyers. As the listing cautions, “Showings are subject to availability based upon filming production schedule.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures -
Image Credit: Zillow Byrdview’s most famous cameo is as the hilltop lair of Gabriel Shear (John Travolta) in the 2001 action thriller “Swordfish,” though CGI was employed to make the pad appear to be situated overlooking downtown Los Angeles in the film. While numerous areas of the house were utilized in the production, it is by the property’s pool that Halle Berry, playing Shear’s cohort Ginger Knowles, notoriously shed her top for the first time onscreen, an act for which she was said to be paid a whopping $500,000.
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Television Other productions lensed at Byrdview include the season one episode of “Six Feet Under” titled “An Open Book,” in which it played the home of Brenda Chenowith’s (Rachel Griffiths) parents.
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Image Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) lives there in Sony Pictures’ 2005 movie adaptation of “Bewitched.” In fact, so prolific is Byrdview’s film and television “career” that it has actually portrayed Ferrell’s onscreen home twice!
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Image Credit: 20th Television It also appears as the funnyman’s residence throughout the second season of “The Last Man on Earth.” For the series, the pad was made to appear as if it was situated atop Point Dume in Malibu.
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Image Credit: DreamWorks Pop star Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles) and her music producer husband Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) live there in the 2006 musical “Dreamgirls.”
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Image Credit: Paramount Pictures Ironhide lands in Byrdview’s pool upon first coming to earth in the 2007 blockbuster “Transformers.”
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Image Credit: Lionsgate Television The home masquerades as the Palm Springs property where Don Draper (Jon Hamm) stays with Joy (Laura Ramsey) – and gets heat exhaustion – during a visit to California in the season two episode of “Mad Men” titled “The Jet Set.”
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Image Credit: Showtime Networks The dwelling pops up a couple of times as Stu Beggs’ (Stephen Tobolowsky) house on the series “Californication.” In season four’s “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” Marcy Runkle (Pamela Adlon) gives the movie producer a “full Kardashian” body wax by Byrdview’s pool, which is rather ironic being that the property boasts a dedicated massage room in real life.
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Image Credit: Amazon Studios Co-workers Finn (Chris Diamantopoulos) and Gregory (Michael Graziadei) attend a “shindig” there in the season one episode of “Good Girls Revolt” titled “Puff Piece.”
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Image Credit: ITV Studios Global Entertainment And the estate plays the home of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson (Andy Favreau) on the second season of “Aquarius.” In the episode titled “Happiness Is a Warm Gun,” Patty Krenwinkel (Madisen Beaty) says of the place, “It’s a crazy scene, a party that literally never stops. There must be 50 people there all the time.” The descriptor certainly calls to mind what it must have been like during Byrdview’s real life glory days when a different crooner supposedly called it home.