Huddle up, vintage L.A. architecture fans — it’s prayer-circle time.
Making its first appearance on the market in half a century is a 1930s French Normandy Revival-style residence situated in a particularly coveted enclave on the border between Beverly Hills and Holmby Hills. Just to give an inkling of the location’s desirability, former residents of the street include Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Wallis Annenberg, and most recently, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.
The original occupants of the Wallace Neff-designed French Tudor Revival that would subsequently be owned by Wallis Annenberg and the Aniston-Pitts were husband-and-wife film stars Frederic March and Florence Eldridge. In 1935, when Lucile Roos Klinger, the American-born daughter of a wealthy French family, decided to build a house across the road from the couple, the Marches recommended she hire their friend Nicholas A. Kabush as her architect.
Born in Manchuria, China, to Russian parents, Kabush immigrated to America in 1923. After receiving his architectural degree from USC in 1928, Kabush did stints in a few prestigious firms, most notably that of Pierpont and Walter Davis, before segueing into a career as a set designer for film studios, primarily Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Per his obituary, Kabush worked as a studio set designer until 1947, when he moved to Spokane, Washington.
Set behind wrought-iron gates at the top of a herringbone-pattern circular brick drive, the two-story residence’s exterior features a steeply pitched slate roof with steeple-like finials, conical towers, decorative half-timbering, distinctive stonework, and quaint weathervane. More artfully created rusticity and Old World craftsmanship await inside in the form of irreplaceable original elements such as scraped herringbone floors, Art Deco and Malibu tile, leaded-glass windows, and hand-hewn beams.
Along with four bedrooms and four bathrooms, the 4,400-square-foot home contains a step-down formal living room, highlighted by an 18th-century French marble fireplace surround, a formal dining room with French doors, and a wood-paneled library with a copper-and-stone fireplace and full bar. There’s also a lower-level one-bedroom guest or staff unit with a full bath, sitting room, and separate entrance, a detached garage with parking for three cars, and a wee stone guardhouse.
Renowned landscape architect Edward Huntsman-Trout was commissioned to design the street-to-street property’s idyllic grounds, which feature boxwood-lined pathways, towering shade trees, an English rose garden, a plethora of antique statuary, and a secluded pool complete with a slide.
Last sold in 1974 for $258,000, the 0.59-acre property is now on offer with an asking price a soupçon under $8.5 million. JB Fung of Beyond Shelter at Compass holds the listing.
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Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Dave Fitzgerald, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis for Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Dave Fitzgerald for Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter -
Image Credit: Joel Reis, courtesy of Beyond Shelter