Tasteful Friends, the Lord Mansion of 1962 by John Elgin Woolf

The house next door sort of spoils the vibe, at least in the first pic.

Wish there was a floorplan in the listing.

it's not ugly, but this styl5e leaves me cold. if I had 15 mil this isn't what I'd buy.

the listing has the address in Bev Hills, but it looks more like Pacific Palisades...

The pretentious and disproportionate Doric columns spoil the otherwise clean beauty of the structure's design. Slender plain black columns would have enhanced the look.

R2, it's Trousdale Estates.

I don’t really care for the anachronistic details like the classical columns and whatever those things over the entrance are.

[quote]The longtime estate of actress Marjorie Lord

Uh-oh. Are the glass coffee tables included?

It looks like a mausoleum, albeit one with spectacular views.

The over-scaled over-stylized classical elements are part of the Hollywood Regency style.

If you don't like them. you don't like the house.

Bullshit. Those are decorative elements. These house would be fine without them.

Also R9 "The Chrysler Building would be fine without the Art Deco bits."

It’s just a house.

Hollywood Regency is a style of interior decor. It’s not a style of architecture. Getting rid of those explicitly tacked-on bits would not destroy the house.

R12, it is most absolutely a style of architecture. See "John Elgin Woolf" for details.

If a pastiche of historical periods intended to convey theatrical glamour can be called an architectural style. To me it’s just an idiosyncratic platform for the decor. The fact that he built houses in service of the decor is secondary.

A pastiche of historical periods intended to convey theatrical glamour can, indeed, be called an architectural style. Thus "Hollywood Regency". If you think about the name its meaning may become clear!

BTW, R14, have you met the moron in this linked thread who thinks Mid-Century American Modernism is Brutalism? Somehow I think you'd hit off nicely.

r8: Ah. Then I don't like the house.

Much like post-modernism, it is a style that revels in being a hodge-podge of bits stolen from elsewhere. Such works are rarely appreciated long-term for good reason. They are superficial and have no internal consistency.

R16, fair enough.

This proto-postmodernism is not everyone's cup of tea. But Woolf's secret-garden approach to indoor/outdoor living was superb.

R17, Woolf grounded his works in theories derived from Charles Adams Platt and Edith Wharton. They are baubles, not trifles.

The front entrance and outside look like the Fred Segal that was on Melrose. Not a fan. It's very cold feeling.

I want to like it but don't. It misses and by a wide mark. The "Hollywood Regency" elements of pavilions just look too comical, like those nervous, scratchy illustrations in Osbert Lancaster's 1930s books of architectural styles in which he coins styles like "Stockbroker's Tudor.". Occasionally the Hollywood revival of Regency strikes gold or at least a smile, but too often it contorts the flatness of the source style for cheapness, and pavilions cut out of Kleenex boxes with a few little bells from a cat collar strung along the parapet.

It's all too tentative, expensive rather than confident. The interiors are terrible. Low ceilings, no evident progression of spaces (though I'll echo the regret up thread of having no floor plan to examine.) The recessed fluorescent strip lights in the ceiling of one of the major rooms says it all.

That great arch of the colonnaded court should be something great, especially given the prospect over the city, but no.

I agree OP, it's a style that's hard to love and I'm a big admirer of revival styles and historical references, but this example doesn't work at all for me

I think Hollywood Regency best works in big spaces, with lots of "nothing" among the ornamentations and tchotchkes. This house seems crowded and cluttered.

R22, the staging is dreadful and not in keeping with the aesthetic overall. It looks like a corporate conference room.

I like the view.

I agree (R2) that with $15MM I'd probably buy something else, and I'm not usually a fan of white white white, but I really do love that kitchen. And I'd be caftanning the shit out of that pool and bar area.

She was married to Harry Volk, who ran Union Bank. I met them both, and her daughter Anne Archer (and her son), at the wedding of Harry’s granddaughter. I knew the bride and groom from Cal.

Isn't Anne Archer a big Scientologist?

R26 Wow. I've just shat myself from the excitement.

Next time, wipe yourself.

I like the inside better than the outside on this one.

It's a grotesque architecture that always looks cheap and disoriented. This one is particularly hideous as it seems to have all the horrifying elements of this confusing and creepy style. Tear it down. No loss.

It's ugly, IMO. $15 million doesn't sound like that much for Beverly Hills. I think the price reflects that this Hollywood Regency bullshit is not standing the test of time.