“Skylights over the counters, glass down to the floor, foliage close enough to touch. Somebody designed this for the hours you’re actually home.”
- Sam O'Connor
5649
Valley Oak Dr
Los Angeles
Bedrooms
3
Bathrooms
4
Total Area
2,661 Sq. FT
Lot Size
9,511 Sq. FT
Price
$2,699,000
Modernism, After the Manifesto
The Case Study House Program ran from 1945 to 1966, twenty-one years of Arts & Architecture trying to prove that a modern house could be built well, quickly, and for a reasonable number. This house went up on a Los Feliz Oaks cul-de-sac in the program’s final year, which is worth knowing about it. It was never trying to prove anything. It inherited beams, glass, and the open plan as settled matters and got on with the business of being lived in. Working Holiday Spaces handled the recent redesign and had the sense to leave that instinct where it was.
Listed by: Louise Leach and Juan Longfellow, Compass
Inside
The double-height living area is where the house makes its case. Dark exposed beams run the ceiling against white walls, and a tile-backed fireplace climbs the full height with a floating hearth beneath it, a detail that dates the house precisely and flatters it anyway. Floor-to-ceiling glass brings the hillside foliage close enough to count as decor. The open-riser staircase does structural work while behaving like sculpture. In the kitchen, oversized skylights drop daylight onto marble counters, a long island, and custom wood cabinetry, with a banquette breakfast nook holding the corner. Warm wood floors and track lighting carry through the plan, along with a den that takes the overflow: office one year, guest room the next.
Outside
The lot runs 9,511 square feet at the end of a cul-de-sac, which in the Oaks means the only traffic is people who already live on it. Off the living area, a seating corner sits just outside the glass, and steps rise from there into a backyard that terraces up the hill instead of pretending to be flat. Upstairs, sliding doors open onto a flagstone patio, so the second floor gets an outdoor room of its own for the hour before anyone else is awake. The larger deck handles dinners. Griffith Park is minutes away and the 101 is nearly as close, an unusual pair of neighbors for a street this quiet.
The O' Factor
There is a difference between a house that made an argument and a house that grew up after it was won, and the second is almost always easier to live in. The Case Study houses were built to prove something, and proving it cost them: beautiful in photographs, demanding in practice, short on storage and long on glare. By 1966 the ideas had been tested in public for two decades, so the houses that came next could take the beams, the glass, and the open plan and spend what was left of their attention on comfort. That is this house. Skylights over the counters rather than a west wall of glass, a den that changes jobs, a laundry room that exists. It is for someone who wants to live in the movement rather than curate it.
Explore local lifestyle.
If this is your taste, let’s talk.
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
SOLD
$8,250,000
11945
Lockridge Rd
Studio City
“Closed in under two weeks at $250,000 over asking, after multiple offers.”
SOLD
$7,775,000
12221
Benmore Ter
Los Angeles
“Sold for $1,514 per square foot.”
SOLD
$5,300,000
2525
Outpost Dr
Los Angeles
“Closed off-market for $250,000 over asking.”
SOLD
$5,140,000
708
N Kenter Ave
Los Angeles
“Sold for $1,619 per square foot.”
SOLD
$4,995,000
10317
Valley Spring Ln
Toluca Lake
“Sold off-market for $1,249 per square foot.”
SOLD
$4,900,000
16557
Park Lane Dr
Los Angeles
“Sold for $1,227 per square foot.”
