Though he’s a New Jersey native who never went to art school or any college at all, for that matter, Wes Lang has become arguably one of L.A.’s most successful artists. His work — which is hard to find and harder to obtain, unless you’ve got many thousands of dollars to drop on a single painting — has been described as “a spiky synthesis of pop culture icons, Wild West mythology, and callouts to the giants of postwar art.” While spending the last 30 years honing his craft, Lan’gs earned ardent fans in the likes of Kanye West and Damien Hirst, to name just a couple. West famously collaborated with him on merch for his 2013 Yeezus world tour; years later, the pair created anew for West’s Wyoming merch launch.
Lang’s latest project is of the residential variety. He’s paid about $5.4 million for a stylish home studio with loads of potential in San Marino, Calif., an affluent San Gabriel Valley suburb of Los Angeles. Built in ’67 and designed by accomplished modernist architect John F. Galbraith, the house has been well-preserved but was likely expanded at some point — and it boasts a unique flair that’s still mostly 1960s, albeit with a dash of ’70s and a scoop of ’80s hangover tossed into the mix.
Located in one of San Marino’s ritziest neighborhood pockets, the house sits atop a knoll high above the street, with a long driveway gracefully ascending past huge swaths of grassy lawn. Behind gates, an atrium-like entryway is brightened by skylights, while double wooden doors swing into the home’s decidedly retro interiors. Many of the rooms flaunt wall-to-wall carpeting, while the kitchen is a mostly original time capsule that prioritizes function over form. A step-down living room has a fireplace and adjoins an open library with walnut paneling, and there’s a fireside sitting room with views over the courtyard-like pool area. A leather-wrapped wet bar has a pass-through window to serve outdoor guests.
Though the house appears low-slung and relatively modest from the street, it’s actually mansion-sized, with nearly 7,000 square feet of living space. It’s also mostly single-story, so that means lots of corridors, long hallways and certainly a great deal of walking — perfect for the display of art, as it were. Off the central hallways are three large bedrooms, all of them with ensuite bathrooms.
There’s also an unexpectedly massive formal dining room, plus a huge space that the listing calls an “entertainment area” at the far rear of the home. This space sports a carved oak bar, family room and a billiards room, plus a particularly dated tile floor. Stairs lead up to a loft-like bedroom and a bathroom with jade green carpet that’s decidedly outré but admittedly rather awesome in its trend-flouting manner.
And Lang, 49, still owns his L.A. “starter” home — a striking midcentury modern in the Los Feliz hills with views of Griffith Park. He paid $2.6 million for that three-bedroom perch in 2017, per records.