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Click for full photo gallery: In Pictures: Holmby Hills' Retro Hollywood Home
In the 1930s — the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood — Paul Williams enjoyed success as one of Tinseltown’s go-to architects. His distinct design style, which included grand entrance ways with spiral staircases and lavish dining rooms fit for parties, was sought by old school A-listers like Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and Tyrone Power. The architectural prowess of Williams, an African American, also broke social barriers, as he became the first-ever African American fellow of the prestigious American Institute of Architects.
The 11,300 square foot mansion located at 111 North Mapleton Drive in Los Angeles, Calif. is one of those Williams’ architectural artifacts. The first thing you see upon entering the seven bedroom, 11 bathroom mansion is that signature arching staircase curling down into the sweeping foyer. The walls sparkle silver with Chinese wall paper and the same color scheme, curtains and moldings fan out into the adjoining drawing room and vestibule.
The newly updated and restored piece of luxury real estate is the recent work of designer Craig Wright and architect Richard Manion. Since the house had fallen into slight architectural disarray after a haphazard addition was slapped on by previous owners, the current owners hired Wright and Manion to infuse the Williams home with structural renovations, color schemes and furniture meant to invoke the retro charm of a Tinseltown era long past.
The result? Today the posh Holmby Hills estate, which shares its elite west L.A. zip code with the $150 million Spelling Manor and Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Mansion, is on the sale block for $23.95 million. Linda May of Coldwell Banker Previews International holds the listing.
“It was a matter of reapportioning the spaces more than anything else but all of the spaces stayed in the original footprint including the addition of the house,” says Wright, who has restored three Paul Williams homes in his celebrated career. “We tried to bring it back typical to what we might have seen in Los Angeles in the heyday.” That heyday was a design combination of art deco, Chinese Chippendale and Chinoiserie embraced in the mid-1930s and gone by the time World War II was winding down.The restoration team had their work cut out for them. The addition had included several bedrooms that overhung the first floor terraces (think “a trailer on stilts,” says Wright). Wright and Manion fixed this by adding a winter garden to visually balance the exterior lines of the house. To add the sense of more space in the original Williams rooms (which were smaller than their new counterparts) the team extended the ceilings up as much as two feet into the attic, thus creating taller areas with higher domes, while keeping the roof in tact.
The previous owners — television producers who shall remain anonymous — had also tacked on an enormous anomaly of a media theater. Wright and Manion converted it into a suite of three adjoining entertainment rooms: a bar modeled after the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a clubroom and a playroom. Bleached mahogany, black lacquer paint and cashmere define the suite, tying the rooms together visually.
Then there was the kitchen. After the expansion, the kitchen had been cast further center into the home’s layout, becoming an interior room, natural light and pretty views of the lush gardens or pool and poolside cabana absconded. “We had to create the illusion that it had views and vistas so we added windows that would open into other rooms — one large window opens onto the winter garden with the view beyond and another window is for light and is opposite a window in the staff dining room which brings in borrowed light,” explains Wright. They also turned the breakfast nook into a throwback china room — that’s right, a room whose sole purpose is to display chinaware.
Wright, who also owns an antique furniture company, decorated with a flare for the time period as well, mixing traditional Georgian furniture with art deco and a few modern pieces.
The gated white mansion also touts a gym, library, music room, upstairs family room, staff quarters with private entrance, sunken tennis court, and 12-car private motor court.
Listing agent Linda May says the retro palace has been on the market with Coldwell Banker Previews International for about a month and a half. It debuted on the MLS at $26.5 million, before recently reducing to the current $23.95 asking price.
She says it’s drumming up all kinds of interest from buyers with a taste for vintage Tinseltown: “The person who wants new construction is a very different buyer — those homes have square footage and are rather soul less,” she explains. “I sell them and there’s an audience for them, but this buyer has sophistication, a sense of architecture, a more refined palate, wants to own something with architectural definition” asserts May.
To see 111 North Mapleton Drive for yourself, check out the photo gallery above.
Property Porn Of The Week: Holmby Hills’ $24 Million Retro Hollywood Home - Morgan Brennan - Closing Table - Forbes -Los Angeles-Platinum Triangle-Beverly Hills Real Estate-90210-Bel Air-Holmby Hills-Sunset Strip-Hollywood Hills-Luxury Estates-Mansions-Celebrity Homes-Homes For Sale-Listings-Realtor-Real Estate – http://www.ChristopheChoo.com
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