Though the carport has since been enclosed, the house looks much as it did when it was built in 1962.
courtesy Crosby Doe Associates
In the early 1960s, a comedian named Thomas Young commissioned architect William E. Mader, then just in his mid-30s, to design a modestly sized modern home in the Studio City area of Los Angeles, on a steep slope along a sleepy, serpentine street just off famed Mulholland Drive with epic views over a huge swathe of the San Fernando Valley.
Mader, a USC graduate who in 1965 became the principal architect for the Irvine Company, a prolific real estate developer responsible for residential and retail projects across California’s Orange County, completed the project in 1962. And, though it has had updates over the ensuing decades, the two-story hillside home looks today much as it did 60-odd years ago.
The 2,405-square-foot home, priced at $2.095 million, is one of 14 midcentury homes that comprise the Eureka Summit Residential Historic District, a subdivision within the Wrightwood Estates development in the foothills that rise to the south of Studio City. Vintage marketing materials touted the neighborhood’s homes as light-filled and the opposite of ordinary, according to listings held by Robert Moore and Veronika Sznajder, both with Crosby Doe Associates.
The Thomas house sits close to the street and, with minimal fenestration besides a huge bank of Mondrian-style frosted windows alongside the front door, is oriented to take advantage of its high mountainside perch. Just inside, nearly full-height walls of glass wrap around the great room, making for a truly cinematic view that stretches all the way from Universal City to the Santa Susana Mountains to Woodland Hills.
Breaking up the scenic vista is the original rough-cut stone fireplace with a cantilevered raised hearth. Glass sliders in both the living and dining areas open to a deck that spans the full width of the house, while the open-plan kitchen sports grey ceramic tile counters, stainless steel cabinetry, and modern appliances.
The small entry is dressed up with a bright blue door and a Mondrian-esque bank of frosted windows.
Marc Walker
A full bath on the main floor means a spacious home office is easily pressed into use as a bedroom. Downstairs, flanking a common hall, are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, the primary bath with dual sinks and a walk-in shower, and the guest bath with a sunken tub with dreamy views over the valley.
Elsewhere in Studio City, Vanessa Hudgens’s former digs are now priced at $3.9 million after first popping up at $4.4 million; singer Leona Lewis has dropped the price of her home by $400,000 since it was first listed at $4 million earlier this year; and a 20,000-square-foot mansion built on the site of the late Jeopardy host Alex Trebek’s longtime home was recently listed at $42 million.
Click here for more photos of the midcentury home in Studio City.
Marc Walker
Authors
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Mark David