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John Lautner-designed Wolff Residence on sale for $6.5 million

Hungry Like The Wolff

John Lautner-designed Wolff Residence on sale for $6.5 million

The Wolff House sits dramatically on a hill overlooking West Hollywood's Sunset Strip. (Photo by Darwin Nercesian, courtesy of George Salazar and Tilsia Acosta/Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties)

Set among the winding hillside streets overlooking West Hollywood‘s Sunset Strip is the Wolff Residence, a striking home designed in 1961 by the great mid-century architect John Lautner. Named after interior designer Marco Wolff, the home’s original owner, it was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2006 and has now been listed for $6.5 by George Salazar and Tilsia Acosta of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties. “This is a jewel,” said Salazar. “Anyone who comes to see it is blown away.”

The manner in which the Wolff Residence is dramatically sited against a near-vertical slope is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, Lautner’s first mentor when he arrived in Los Angeles. With less than a quarter-acre of land to call its own, the primarily stone-and-glass home divides 1,664 square feet across three floors, while leaving plenty of room for the architect’s signature flourishes.

The living room takes up nearly the entirety of the top floor and features dramatic 16-foot-tall windows overlooking the Sunset Strip. (Photo by Darwin Nercesian, courtesy of George Salazar and Tilsia Acosta/Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties)

A dining room, updated kitchen and an airy living room with 16-foot-tall windows make up the home’s top floor, which includes a stone fireplace, a fully-grown eucalyptus tree within an interior courtyard, and plenty of built-in copper seating areas that extend to an outdoor terrace. From this floor, a medievalesque staircase leads to the master bedroom suite, which is nearly divided in half between interior space and an outdoor terrace with panoramic views. On the bottom floor is a sun deck and a swimming pool that cantilevers over the street to extend beyond the home’s roofline. In 1970, the client hired Lautner architect a second time to build a guest home on the West side of the property, effectively turning the one-bedroom bachelor pad into a four-bedroom family home.

Though the architect’s similarly-designed Foster House was recently purchased after sitting on the market for less than half a year, the inflated price tag and unusual spatial layout of the Wolff Residence may prove to be a difficult sell.


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