More than 80 years ago, a small, modern house was literally built into the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles. Now it’s for sale, and agents say not much has changed since it was first constructed.
“This house, really, is almost all original with some updates in the kitchen, in the bathrooms, but everything else is intact,” listing agent Lilian Pfaff of Modern California House said in an interview. “And that almost never happens.”
The property, designed by renowned architect Rudolph Schindler, hit the market earlier this month with a $3.295 million price tag, a listing on Homes.com showed. Most recently, it sold for $2.35 million in January 2024.
Schindler was a prolific architect in the 20th century, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy. He trained under Frank Lloyd Wright and was a supervisor on the Hollyhock House project, Wright’s first piece in LA. Most of Schindler’s projects were single-family residences.
Decades later, the house for sale now is “like an artwork,” said Pfaff, who is also a professor of architecture.
The property was originally designed for a couple who requested privacy and natural light, Pfaff and co-listing agent William Baker of The Agency said. Those two characteristics still exist, and they’re complemented by signatures of Schindler’s style, like plywood.
“Houses have an energy to them,” Baker said in an interview. “And when people walk into the house, I mean it just brings a smile to people’s faces.”
In addition to its light-filled interior, the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house features newly updated bathrooms that are pink and blue to match the design of the home. The terraced backyard features a pool that was added to the property in 1946. There’s also an indoor and outdoor fireplace.
“Every space is used, so it has a lot of built-in shelves and little desks and cupboards and things like that,” Pfaff said. “That’s why he’s also an amazing architect. Not only as a history and legacy but also because he is really able to, on this hillside, create this expansive space.
Increased value
Pfaff and Baker said the current owners have used the property as their family home. During the last year, they oversaw a slew of updates to the decades-old house.
“It’s a historic architectural property, but it has the amenities of today,” Pfaff said. “It’s not that you have to live in a museum, you have all the things you really want.”
Even so, the property’s history is likely to attract a unique and specific crowd, according to Baker.
“You don’t normally see an accountant or a corporate person that tends to buy signature pieces of architecture like this,” he said. “It’s architects and it’s actors…This house falls into kind of an interesting demographic of people who want to buy it.”
More than just architecture and history, though, Pfaff and Baker said they’re aware that buyers might have mixed emotions about buying in Los Angeles, especially in the brush-laden hills, after last month’s devastating wildfires.
“It goes both ways,” Baker said. “There are some people who are questioning whether they want to live in Los Angeles because of fires and insurance and whatnot, but then, there’s no better selection of architecture than in Los Angeles.”
At the same time, the recent fires could make the Schindler property even more valuable to buyers.
“There’s so few pedigreed architectural properties in Los Angeles, and we just lost a bunch of great architectural homes in the fires,” Baker said. “So that makes properties like this even more rare.”
