“You can restore a house. You cannot commission a new Eckbo garden.”
- Sam O'Connor
9080
Wonderland Park Ave
Los Angeles
Bedrooms
5
Bathrooms
4
Total Area
3,948 Sq. FT
Lot Size
8,881 Sq. FT
Price
$2,999,000
Original Down to the Terrazzo
Wonderland Park Avenue is one of the streets Laurel Canyon built its reputation on, and this 1961 modern sits at the quiet top of a cul-de-sac near the end of it. Artist Jean Edelstein designed it with architect David Crompton, and the gardens came from Garrett Eckbo, the landscape architect who did as much as anyone to define how a mid-century house is supposed to meet the land around it. Walls of glass pull that landscape into nearly every room, so the greenery reads less like a view and more like another wall of the house. What sets it apart from most of what trades in the canyon is how little has been changed. This is the rare one a purist can walk through without wincing once.
Listed by Molly Kelley and Daria Greenbaum, Compass
Inside
The main level opens from a formal dining room into a living room where a built-in fireplace anchors one side and the backyard takes the other, the two connected so directly that entertaining tends to spill outside on its own. The kitchen still wears its original custom cabinetry and a pass-through bar, the sort of details most canyon renovations tear out on day one and later pay a specialist to fake. Original terrazzo runs underfoot throughout, including up into the primary suite, where floor-to-ceiling windows and an en-suite bath carry the same material discipline. The upper bedrooms each open directly onto their own decks and patios, and a flexible room with a private entrance leads by floating staircase to a third floor that can be whatever the next owner needs, from primary retreat to studio. Preservation this thorough is the whole point here.
Outside
Outside is where the pedigree pays off. The Eckbo garden has had more than sixty years to mature into itself, and it does exactly what he was known for, blurring the edge between built and grown until the house feels planted rather than placed. Terraced decks and patios step down the hillside for lounging and dining, a fountain keeps the soundtrack going, and the secluded canyon setting means the nearest audience is the greenery. The address earns its keep too, sitting in the coveted Wonderland School District, minutes from the Mulholland Tennis Club, and a short reach from the hiking trails and overlooks that make people put up with canyon driving in the first place. Eckbo is gone now, which means the one thing here that can never be redone is the very thing you walk through first.
The O' Factor
Mid-century modern is the most imitated look in Los Angeles right now, and Laurel Canyon is where most of the imitations go to list. Walk enough of them and you learn the tell: the reproduction cabinetry, the terrazzo-look tile, the garden installed last spring to photograph like something older. This house has none of those tells, because it never needed them. The cabinetry is the original cabinetry, the terrazzo is the terrazzo, and the garden is a genuine Garrett Eckbo that has been settling into the hillside since the Kennedy administration. That last part is the one nobody can match at any budget. You can restore a house. You cannot commission a new Eckbo garden. This is a house for the purist who already knows the difference, and would rather inherit the real thing than assemble a convincing version of it.
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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.
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SOLD
Closed $200K over asking
SOLD
Closed for $1,589/sq ft
SOLD
Closed $250k over asking