Taseful Friends! This 1920s Los Angeles Estate Was Once Home to Ava Gardner and Laurence Olivier

A more in-depth look.

OP - I didn't know Olivier and Gardner once lived together. Is that what drove poor Vivien insane?

The hideous midcentury Spanish ranch style architecture makes everything look like a cheap, prefabricated condo building, but the setting is spectacular and the interiors are charming, as many of the original "rustic" features have been preserved and the relatively low ceilings create a very cozy, intimate ambiance. I also think that it's rather lovely that the façade makes the property look like a small, relatively modest home framed by Jacaranda trees, and the more ostentatious elements are built in a scaled fashion down the mountainside. Furthermore, the little stretch of road where the house is located, almost has a fairy tale air to it, with everything being covered by the tree canopy.

As for the rent, wouldn't it be better to purchase a similar home, instead of wasting $222,000 per year, plus taxes and bills, on something that you will never own? Finally, I find it curious that superstars like Olivier and Gardner were content with such a property, when nowadays successful actors spend outrageous amounts of money on concrete behemoths full of unnecessary features and useless, dead space.

I dont like the "modern twist" but all the original character seems to still largely be there, so it wouldnt be hard to make it original. It's a pleasant enough house inside, and the gardens are beautiful. The exterior is nice too.

R3, that is most definitely not "mid-century". I do think the exterior is pretty nondescript but actually like the interior which looks like a real livable home woith manageable rooms. It doesn't look like a movie set or the Home Design section of a department store.

I know that it's not Mid-Century Modern architecture, R5. That is why I have written the adjective midcentury, as in built in the middle of the XX Century (1940s to 1960s). Sorry, maybe I should have made it clearer.