SELLER: Shepard Fairey
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $1,835,000
SIZE: 2,523 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: World famous artist Shepard Fairey has not so quietly hoisted his art-filled house near the eastern edge of the L.A.’s Los Feliz community up for sale on the open market at $1.835 million. Property records show the accomplished graphic designer, street artist, lefty-liberal activist, and occasional DJ — he goes by the name DJ Diabetic because he’s, well, diabetic — paid $1.365 million for the property in October of 2005. That was several years before he became world-famous for the now iconic “Hope” campaign poster he designed during President Obama’s first election cycle in 2008. Fun fact: Although it became a powerful and internationally recognized visual symbol for the feel-good, quasi-political meme the then candidate was selling, the “Hope” poster for which Mister Fairey is so well known was not originally designed in conjunction with or paid for by Obama’s campaign. Anyhoodles, poodles….
Like many homes in Los Angeles’s hillside neighborhood, Mister Fairey’s residence sits hard up on a narrow, winding street just below Griffith Park and features a colorfully tile-accented archway to mark the main entrance. Listing details, which proudly proclaim home’s owner and rather grandly suggests the house speaks “a language of love of HOPE,” show the multi-level, 1920s Mediterranean retains many original architectural details that include “thick archways, hand applied plaster and high-beamed ceilings in the [step-down] living room” that also has peg and groove hardwood floors, a round breasted corner fireplace, and three thrillingly massive arched casement windows. The dining room, just off the terra-cotta tiled entrance hall, has rough plaster walls painted a flat silver color — it actually looks to this property gossip like it may have been spray painted silver, which would certainly fit in with the veteran street artist’s aesthetic — and opens to a wee balcony with tree tops view. The updated galley style-kitchen, fitted with tan solid surface counter tops, black subway tile back splashes, and medium-grade appliances, has an adjoining dining space with built-in banquette custom-painted by Mister Fairey. (Would anyone be the least bit surprised if the next owner removes and tries to sell the banquette as an artwork? No, we would not be surprised either.)
Two guest/family bedrooms, one with white sheets rather sadly hung in place of proper closet doors, are joined by a master bedroom that encompasses a small sitting room/office with custom built-in wardrobes, a slightly bigger bedroom chamber and a compact bathroom finished with beige, tumbled stone tiles. A separate guest space with private bathroom on the lower floor has a separate entrance and adjoins a small nook of a room — a “hidden creative space” — that listing details say was “often used by the artist for illustrations and sketches.” The guest space opens to a terra-cotta tiled terrace that overlooks a complex, Escher-esque series of staircases that descend to a lower yard with grass patch and a dining/lounging terrace with built-in fire pit and outdoor bar finished with reclaimed wood where “worldly guests and cultural luminaries have dropped in” and “eaten a meal,” according to listing details. A wide driveway at the side of the house leads to an attached two-car garage “frequently used as a painting studio with remnants of sketches on the wall.”
Property records show Mister Fairey has already purchased his next house, a strikingly modern 4,071-square-foot micro-compound in the nearby Franklin Hills ‘hood that was purchased last summer for $2.541 million.
Listing photos: Sotheby’s International Realty
