The Colby’s Home For Sale

Nothing to do with The Colby's.

Selling your own house? Isn’t that a bit tacky? I can’t imagine buyers would feel comfortable being shown the family home by the owners.

It’s not really a house. It’s a hotel. Who would buy it? And what would you go with it?

Looks like Hilton and Hyland photoshopped away the cracks in the front courtyard, this picture is from Zillow.

[quote] Selling your own house? Isn’t that a bit tacky?

Who cares saving your self the commission on $75 million is worth it.

The pictures don't do that house justice, that place is enormous. Look at the satellite view from Google.

I saw this place in several Hart to Hart episodes too. Originally the Paley residence. I’d keep it Paley.

R5 buyers in that bracket do care.

All the brothers and sisters lived in the same house? How down-to-Earth and relatable!

I wonder how he became the titular head of the family, seemingly. He does have a lot of brothers and sisters - what the fuck do they do?

And his son Barron Hilton is a spoiled brat - there are a lot of stories of him being just a complete asshole. I remember he smoked in a plane bathroom and said that his family could buy and sell everyone on the plane.

Charming family.

If I pay $75 million for a home in LA, I damn well better have a view.

The Eva Gabor estate, also a Williams project, is nearby. It sold not long ago for 11M.

It's

THE COLBYS

not

The Colby's

you FAT WHORE!

[quote] I wonder how he became the titular head of the family,

Wouldn’t that be the wife?

I hate it. Williams's work rarely works for me, and least of all here with its tentative, pencil thin columns and its tentative, squat, shallow pediments looking as they they were drawn on in pencil, then ribbed away with a rubber eraser awaiting a correction and redraw that never happened. One room stretched out horizontally, another vertically, it's design by Silly-Putty.

Williams' better, more successful design were his unassuming, smaller houses that feel more unified and have some cleverness and spatial sequences that work.

This place looks like a house made of playing cards and glued together toothpicks, with no confidence in the detailing.

I like how the "cozy" rooms always seem like waiting rooms.

R14 thank you for articulating what I feel too. The proportions are just off and jarring. It does look flimsy for $75m.

"R15, we have everything ready; would you and your party like to come through now and view the deceased?"

I like it. The 1930s were a curious time for American luxury houses - one didn't wish to seem too ostentatious - and the "matchstick" detailing others have pointed out was an attempt, in some ways, to provide historic detail without looking overwhelmingly opulent or crassly literal-minded. The Art Deco swimming pool is magnificent. It's also where the Cars filed the music video for "Magic".

True, R18, and the related factor is that it was the decade in which film had an influence on design. Earlier films emulated real architecture, the 1939s inspired some architecture, or at least the adaptation of some theatrical/film conceits. Not only is the detailing light and - to my eye - flimsy in this quite expensive house, but the very walls, as I mentioned earlier, have the lightness of playing cards: rooms as stage sets rather than architecture.

I get it, I just don't like the insubstantiality of it. I prefer the solid, grounded, thick-walled rich houses of the 1930s - they, too, had some aspects of modesty and lightness (though in color, not construction), doing away with dark mahogany panelled rooms in favor of walls plastered or covered in raised panels and painted (Colonial style paneling) and a simple chunkiness. There was a sparer, simpler, less ostentatious aesthetic on both coasts, but it was unsurprisingly LA that favored these stage set country club style houses far more.

The pool is a gorgeous thing. I don't like pools but never understand why very expensive houses have very run-of-the-mill pools. This is a very nice exception.

It’s a strange market indeed where “statement” pricing apparently creates its own demand.

White is right.

The pool is gorgeous, but it’s so far from the house. Geez you need a jitney to get there.

The interior looks very staged. Wish we’d seen how someone with pre 2020 realtor taste has lived in the house. It was probably much more interesting.

Who lived here in the 80s and was willing to whore their house out for every Aaron Spelling show and Lincoln ads?

Corinthian leather!

Faaaaaancy.

Classy.

Did I miss pictures of the kitchen? If there are no kitchen shots, what's wrong with it?

The kitchen is clearly a mess - they spent money painting and renting the ghastly staging furniture but didn’t want to spring for a new kitchen

They should redo the facade and designate the rear as a protected landmark.

R1, an aerial view of the estate was featured in The Colbys opening.

I assisted in decorating the interior twice in the late 1990s for the Christmas holidays. The house is HUGE. And haunted.

Mrs. Hilton was a doll. Mr. Hilton never spoke to us. Rick, Kathy and the kids including Paris arrived while we were there.

The coolest thing about this place has got to be the rear sliding doors. They are pocket sliding doors, from the 1930s. Like the new, ultra modern houses they're building, the rear walls of glass completely disappear. They showed it on Hart to Hart. Everything was white, with pops of yellow everywhere. Jonathan and Jennifer visited at least 3 different times, with three different owners/residents.

Those doors!

In the 1930s, Jacob "Jay" Paley was often described by his Hollywood friends as a dilettante. Retiring at the age of 42, he sold his interest in the Congress Cigar Co. (La Palina) and traveled the world. After seven years of continuous travel, he settled in Bel Air's Holmby Hills in a Paul R. Williams-designed mansion with interiors by Harriet Shellenberger. Shellenberger, a much in-demand decorator of the time, also worked with Williams on the redesign of the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Arrowhead Springs Hotel resort.

During the Great Depression, architects and builders across the United States found little work. Paul R. Williams appeared to be immune to the financial down-turn affecting his profession. In 1934 when Williams received the commission to design Jay Paley's Bel Air residence, he had already completed 36 other large Hollywood homes. (Watters. Houses of Los Angeles: 1920-1935, 2007) This was the Golden Age of American film. To the public, the movie industry's stars, producers, and directors appeared depression-proof. Williams was establishing his reputation as the architect who instinctively knew what his Hollywood power elite clients wanted.

At first glance Williams' design for the Paley estate appears traditional but his treatment was decidely modern. Working closely with interior decorator Shellenberger, the completed home with its gardens successfully combine traditional Georgian elements with "moderne" furniture and attitude. The H-shaped, 20-room Paley residence of stucco and hand made brick facade, described at the time as Georgian Colonial–style, was built with the owner's life-style requirements as well as the California emphasis on outdoor living. The elaborate landscaping with its extraordinary pool by Edward Huntsman-Trout working in close collaboration with Williams, combines "Baroque elements, exotic references to natural phenomena, and some Art Deco sculpture." (Streatfield. California Gardens: Creating a New Eden. 1994)

A brief article in Southwest Builder and Contractor (September 27, 1935) described Williams' vision for the two-story residence: carrara marble and glass in the kitchen, bathrooms and showers, rubber tile work, and a mix of oak and linoleum floors. Hardwoods and pine trim were to be installed throughout along with closets lined with cedar. A state-of-the-art gas-fired heating/hot water system and air conditioning were also to be installed. The builders, O'Neal & Sons estimated the cost to be $100,000 a huge sum for the time. More details would be listed, along with photographs (Image 9), in scores of national interior design magazines including Architectural Digest (1937).

The home's curving driveway led to a forecourt with a large paved axis, a popular cartographic motif found in many Los Angeles estates built in the 1930s and 1940s. The inlaid axis of red-colored aggregate gathered in Maryland was installed by local craftsmen. Williams continued the idea of radiating axis lines through the house and to the pool ending at the pool pavilion (images 8-10). The bottom of the swimming pool is covered in thousands of multi-colored tiles imported from France that form a mosaic sunburst with the twelve signs of the zodiac. This pool built by the Paddock Engineering Company is considered one of the most beautiful in California. Two "sandy-beach" pool-side areas were used for sunbathing providing the Paley's and guests an eccentric outdoor living space. A separate pavilion created to service the out-door area included a bar, grille and small card room. (Pacific Saturday Night. November 20, 1937)

Settled in his new home (1936), Paley learned the rumba, played high stakes poker with studio elite and produced two movies. Architectural historians consider the Jay Paley mansion one of Williams' finest and most successful residential designs. Jay (1885-1960) and his wife Lilian (1893-1954) would live in the home until their deaths. In 1961 most of the Shellenberger interior was removed and sold at auction. The estate was sold for $475,000 and the surrounding acres developed.

Unfortunately a subsequent Paley/Williams collaborative project was not as successful. Paley was a major stockholder in the extensive Paul R. Williams' renovation of the Arrowhead Springs Hotel. Aesthetically the hotel was a triumph for Williams and his design team, but as an investment for Paley it was a disaster.

Not sure anyone said this yet, but $75 million for this iconic house vs $85 for the Seacrest/Ellen Gay House of Horrors. No contest.

PS--Lots of good scenes from the pool shot at this house for 'The Colbys'...and Maxwell Caulfield was always in a black Speedo.

So stupid question, but why would they constantly let the house out as a film location? Did they need the money? Who would want the disruption?

R41, no doubt they had multiole homes and travelled a great deal. Why not rent it out if you're in Aspen or the south of France on an extended holiday?

*multiple

I want to hear more about the ghosts haunting the house.

Did Williams pioneer Hollywood Regency? He's funny, the black architect to café society doing these plantation houses streamlined and glammed up, and looking like they have anorexia. I like them because they are very chic but its somehow not satisfactory as a home. The style would better suit a chic supper club, or country club, or yes, hotel. Too art directed. Dorothy Draper worked a fat rococo into her design of that era. I realise, not an architect. I just like a mansion based on classical design to have some mass. Otherwise there were minimal modernist designs that lend themselves to fineness in structure. Bauhaus could have been adapted to LA, as it was in Tel Aviv.

Looking at the aerial photo, I would be driven crazy by all the surrounding houses backing right up to the property. There’s no way the new owners of this place won’t hear nonstop noise, conversations, music and parties. For $75M, I’d like to be much more separated from any neighbors.

Looking at the aerial photo, I would be driven crazy by all the surrounding houses backing right up to the property. There’s no way the new owners of this place won’t hear nonstop noise, conversations, music and parties. For $75M, I’d like to be much more separated from any neighbors.

For those who may not know the amazing history of architect Paul Revere Williams, he was a black man in a virtually all-white field. Yet he emerged as one of the the leading residential and commercial architects of Southern California from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. He designed countless celebrity homes (Sinatra, et.al.) as well as the iconic LAX Airport “Theme Building”.

Sadly, he designed homes for many neighborhoods that would not allow a black person to live there.

For those who may not know the amazing history of architect Paul Revere Williams, he was a black man in a virtually all-white field. Yet he emerged as one of the the leading residential and commercial architects of Southern California from the 1930’s through the 1960’s. He designed countless celebrity homes (Sinatra, et.al.) as well as the iconic LAX Airport “Theme Building”.

Sadly, he designed homes for many neighborhoods that would not allow a black person to live there.

[quote] Looking at the aerial photo, I would be driven crazy by all the surrounding houses backing right up to the property. There’s no way the new owners of this place won’t hear nonstop noise, conversations, music and parties. For $75M, I’d like to be much more separated from any neighbors.

Looks like maybe 2 neighbors pools that kind of back up to the 2.5 acre property, but even with those 2 there seems to be quite a bit of space, walls and shrubs. unless you are on the edges of the property, I can't imagine that you would hear conversations. The pool backs up to the tennis court.

It's LA, somebody will buy it, tear it down, and build something new.

[quote] It's LA, somebody will buy it, tear it down, and build something new.

Its a historic home.

[quote]no doubt they had multiole homes and travelled a great deal.

By 1997, Mrs. Hilton was bedridden with MS. We did a separate tree and decorations for her suite. However, she would be brought downstairs to approve our work before we left. She had champagne brought out for us. Tipped quite well.

It’s not worth $75 million.