One of Los Angeles’ most storied residences has just hit the market for the first time in over two decades! Known as The Paramour Estate, the listing describes the place as “the definition of a trophy property” and that is not hyperbole. More of a compound than a residence, the pedigreed site, which sits atop the highest promontory in Silver Lake at 1923 Micheltorena St. with 360-degree views of virtually all of Los Angeles, is comprised of a sprawling mansion and three guest cottages totaling 15 bedrooms and 15 baths spread across a whopping 21,632 square feet!
The momentous listing is held by Sally Forster Jones of Compass. Offered at an incredible $39,995,000, The Paramour Estate is the most expensive property currently available on Los Angeles’ Eastside.
Steeped in Hollywood history, the manor was originally commissioned in 1918 by Daisy Canfield, socialite heir to the Pan American Petroleum estate, and her husband, silent film star Antonio Moreno, whom the Los Angeles Times claimed was “second only to Rudolph Valentino in popularity as a Latin lover.” The dwelling took five years to complete and the couple moved into their new digs, which they dubbed Crestmount, in 1923.
Designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Robert D. Farquhar, who was also responsible for the Owlwood Estate, Beverly Hills High School and the California Club, no expense was spared in the property’s construction. The architect outfitted the massive 15,388-square-foot main residence with a formal dining room, a music room, a sunroom and countless ornate embellishments, including carved doors inspired by those from a chateau in Paris.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography Standing at the center of it all is the manse’s crown jewel, a 1,250-square-foot ballroom capped by a hand-stenciled wood-beamed ceiling that stands 25 feet above the plank wood floors below. The dramatic space also features a marble fireplace, a large arched window and French doors leading out to both the North and South Terraces on either side.
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Image Credit: Simon Berlyn Photography The property’s exterior is equally as dazzling as its interior with 4.3 acres of lush gardens, a 2,025-square-foot Great Lawn, multiple terraces and patios and parking for 50 cars.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography The pad’s original hand-tiled marble pool, an incredible showpiece of glamour and design, can also be found outside, situated in the central courtyard surrounded by greenery, wrought-iron balconies and a three-story turret.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography As if all that is not enough, the views from virtually every angle of the property are unparalleled.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography Upon its completion, the estate quickly became the toast of Tinseltown with Daisy and Antonio regularly hosting “Sundays at the Crestmount” for all of their high society friends. Just a few of the movers and shakers who partied there include Buster Keaton, Marion Davies and Norma Shearer.
The couple’s happy times at the manse were short-lived, though, due to Moreno’s wandering eye and they wound up separating in 1928. The following year, Daisy turned their former love nest into the Chloe P. Canfield Memorial Home, a boarding school for girls named in honor of her mom, a philanthropist who was murdered by a former employee decades prior. Daisy herself met a sad fate just a few years later, perishing in an auto accident when her chauffeur lost control of her car on Mulholland Dr. and plunged off a 300-foot cliff. Canfield died instantly, but the driver survived.
In 1953, the estate was reimagined once again, this time as the Immaculate Conception Home for Girls, a residence for orphaned children run by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. The nuns continued to utilize the space until the Whittier Narrows earthquake rendered it uninhabitable in 1987. Though it was deemed a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument the following year, the Sisters chose not to restore it. As their attorney, Christopher J. Anderson, told the Los Angeles Times, “In many ways, the Micheltorena property has become like an expensive antique automobile. Collecting and fixing up antique cars and homes is something for the rich.” So it was instead put on the market with the Sisters hoping to use the proceeds to build a local school.
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Image Credit: Simon Berlyn Photography Fate took a turn in 1991 when interior designer/preservationist/restauranteur Dana Hollister toured the residence, then known as the Canfield-Moreno Estate. Appropriately enamored, she began seeking out investors in the hopes of transforming it into a boutique hotel. After those plans fell through largely due to neighborhood opposition, Hollister wound up purchasing the site herself in 1998 and spent the next two decades restoring it, a massive undertaking largely funded by opening the home up to special events and film shoots.
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Image Credit: Simon Berlyn Photography Today, the pad, which Hollister re-named The Paramour Estate, is a mesh of Old Hollywood, Moroccan and Bohemian design, full of rich textures with each room more striking than the last.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography And virtually every square inch of it has appeared onscreen.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography The estate’s most famous cameo, arguably, is in the 2000 horror film “Scream 3,” in which it masks as the residence of “Stab 3” producer John Milton (Lance Henriksen), where the bloody final sequence takes place.
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Image Credit: Neue Focus Photography The production made great use of the house, filming in the ballroom, by the pool and throughout the hallways. Per director Wes Craven’s “Scream 3” DVD commentary, some of the secret passageways seen in the movie are authentic to the property! Editor Patrick Lussier also notes in the commentary that part of Paramour’s great allure to filmmakers is its vast versatility onscreen. The manse looks different in every production it appears in. As such, it has become one of L.A.’s more popular filming venues.
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Image Credit: Miramax Other productions to feature The Paramour Estate include 1998’s “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later,” in which it portrayed Hillcrest Academy High School, where a grown-up Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) worked under the pseudonym “Keri Tate.”
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Image Credit: Universal Ali Landry married Dustin Diamond there in 98 Degrees’ 1999 music video for “I Do (Cherish You).”
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Image Credit: Disney-ABC In 2003, Paramour masqueraded as the Tuscan villa where Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin) hid out with his wife, Emily (Amy Irving), in the season two episode of “Alias” titled “Truth Takes Time.”
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Image Credit: Disney-ABC It’s where record producer Ian Blackburn (Stewart Finlay-McLennan) lived and was murdered – presumably by his pet chimpanzee – in the season 3 episode of “Monk” titled “Mr. Monk and the Panic Room”, which aired in 2004.
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Image Credit: Jive Records That same year, Britney Spears famously crashed a Porsche into Paramour’s pool in her “My Prerogative” music video.
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Image Credit: Disney-ABC In 2009, Rebecca Harper (Emily VanCamp) toured the estate as a possible wedding venue in the season four episode of “Brothers & Sisters” titled “From France with Love.”
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Image Credit: Walt Disney Television And Paramour also played the home of Alice Charles (Julia Schlaepfer) on the 2019 television series “The Politician.”
Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂
Stalk It: The Paramour Estate from “Scream 3” is located at 1923 Micheltorena St. in Silver Lake. Disclaimer: Please remember this is a private home. Do not trespass or bother the residents or the property in any way.