“Built and designed by women, in 1929.”
- Claire O'Connor
3895
Fredonia Dr
Los Angeles
Bedrooms
3
Bathrooms
3
Total Area
2,257 Sq. FT
Lot Size
15,246 Sq. FT
Price
$1,695,000
Built Without Anyone's Permission
Frankie Faulkner designed this Spanish in 1929, which was a rare sentence to be able to write about a Los Angeles house then and is not nearly common enough now. The client was a woman too, commissioning it in her own name and on her own authority, which in 1929 was less a preference than a quiet act of self-determination carried out in stucco and tile. The house sits high on the Studio City side of the hills with the view running across the Hollywood Hills, and a new run of stairs climbs through mature planting to a front porch pointed at the canyon. The approach takes long enough that you arrive at the door having already slowed down. Nearly a century in, the house has been reworked for the way people actually live now, and the restraint of that work is the first thing worth noticing. Kitchens and bathrooms got the attention. The ceilings, the tile, the doors, and the archways were left alone. Plenty of recent work has been done here. What matters is where it stopped.
Listed by: James Harm, Benjamin Kahle, Compass
Inside
The living room is the argument for the whole house. A bow truss ceiling runs the length of it, and the original fireplace still wears its Malibu tile, made a few miles down the coast during the six years Malibu Potteries was in business and never made since. The dining room keeps its original French doors, which open to the outdoor rooms and make the line between inside and outside feel optional by late afternoon. The kitchen was renovated with new counters, a new range, a Bosch refrigerator, and custom soft-close cabinetry, and it had the discipline to leave the Spanish archway alone, so the room still looks through to the living room on one side and the outdoor kitchen on the other. Down a few steps, the guest suite has its own sitting area and its own exterior door, which lets a houseguest keep their own hours without anyone negotiating the hallway. The Art Deco bathroom was preserved rather than replaced, original tile intact, its fixtures chosen by someone who clearly went looking. The primary bath is newly done with dual vanities, a soaking tub, and a separate shower.
Outside
The parcel is mostly flat, which in these hills is closer to a geological accident than an amenity, and it is the reason the grounds feel calm rather than merely private. Garden paths wander through mature fruit trees and vegetable beds that are actually planted, and they end at an elevated terrace with the view running out beneath Mulholland. In 1959 the property gained an attached one-bedroom guest house with a full kitchen, a fireplace, vaulted ceilings, and skylights, and whoever sited it faced it toward the courtyard instead of turning its back on the main house. That courtyard is the center of gravity out here. It has its own outdoor fireplace and enough room around it that dinner tends to run past the point anyone planned, and both residences open onto it, so the guest house reads as part of the property rather than an outbuilding. There is land left over for a pool or an ADU, though the current owners appear to have decided the fruit trees were the better use of it.
The O' Factor
Provenance in Los Angeles usually means a name on a blueprint, cited once at the open house and left there. What is unusual here is that the authorship never breaks. A woman decided this house should exist and a woman drew it, and the decisions the two of them made in 1929, where the light lands, how high the ceiling climbs, which tile carries the fireplace, are still the decisions running the house today. Every owner since has had the option to overrule them. Nobody took it. Years later the property was home to Dr. James M. Goto, a Japanese-American surgeon who came through the worst of what this country did to his generation and went on to spend ten years as chief surgeon at Los Angeles General Hospital, and he did not correct the house either. There is a kind of buyer who takes on a place like this to improve it, and another kind who takes it on to keep it. Ninety-seven years of the second kind is why the Malibu tile, the bow trusses, and the Deco bathroom are all still here. This house has been in good hands since the first two.
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The Homes we Represent,
Represent Us.
Every home has a soul. Every human has a place they were meant to be. Our instinct is knowing when the two finally meet. We honor architecture, preserve great design and celebrate the match. Welcome to O’Connor Estates. We’ve been waiting for you.
Proof is in the Properties
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$8,250,000
11945
Lockridge Rd
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“Closed in under two weeks at $250,000 over asking, after multiple offers.”
SOLD
$7,775,000
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“Sold for $1,514 per square foot.”
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$5,300,000
2525
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“Closed off-market for $250,000 over asking.”
SOLD
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708
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“Sold for $1,619 per square foot.”
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$4,995,000
10317
Valley Spring Ln
Toluca Lake
“Sold off-market for $1,249 per square foot.”
SOLD
$4,900,000
16557
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“Sold for $1,227 per square foot.”
