1459 sqft, 3 beds, 2 baths, single-family home in Los Angeles, CA – 90022
Trulia Real Estate Search – Los Angeles

VENICE: H. Lorenzo’s new multi-brand venture in Venice, Left House, is on a mission to bring commercialized Abbot Kinney back to its indie roots.

MID-CITY: The Midtown Crossing shopping center’s latest retail developments include an Ulta, Sports Authority, and Ross Dress for Less, which is “completed and ready to move in,” a tipster notes.

SILVER LAKE: Looking for home decor ideas? Take a tour of new knitwear line Ragdoll LA‘s airy, skylit design studio in Silver Lake.
· Racked LA [Official Site]

Curbed LA

Single-family home in Los Angeles, CA – Watts
Trulia Real Estate Search – Los Angeles

[Photograph courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions; original photograph by Julius Shulman of the J. R. Davidson Kingsley residence, to be sold with the corresponding lot on Sunday, May 19, 2013]

On Sunday, Los Angeles Modern Auctions is selling off the custom-built furniture from the Kingsley Residence in Pacific Palisades, designed by JR Davidson, the underrated architect who designed three houses for the Case Study House program (Numbers 1, 11, and 15). Why? Because the 1947 house has recently sold and the new owner is planning to demolish it very, very soon, according to the seller (members of the Kingsley family). Boo! Hiss! According to a LAMA press release, this is “One of the last remaining Davidson houses in its original form … The Kingsley residence was never altered in terms of the structure, and aside from minor updates by the architect in the 1950s, the interior of the home remained almost identical to the [Julius] Shulman photographs for over 60 years. While the fate of the house is still unknown, it seems likely that it will be torn down to build a larger structure.” It came on the market in February asking $ 4.2 million and sold in early April, above asking, for $ 4.56 million. It sits on .43 acres.

The Kingsley was built for Joseph and Lore Kingsley on the site of an old lemon grove on Amalfi Drive. Like Davidson, the Kingsleys had fled Germany (Davidson left in 1923; the Kingsley, who were Jewish, didn’t get out until the early 1940s). According to LAMA, they met with Richard Neutra to discuss building a house on their sloping lot, but Neutra refused to give them the breakfast room they wanted and they moved on. Davidson built a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house and returned nine years later to add a poolhouse, mural, and updated furniture. (He also designed a neighboring house for Grandmother Kingsley.)

Davidson also designed custom furniture for the house; items up for auction “include a biomorphic occasional table, two coffee tables (one a nod to a K.E.M. Weber design), as well as an articulated wall light, and dining suite comprised of a table and ten chairs.” (More on the coffee tables here.) They’ll each come with a vintage print of one of Julius Shulman’s photographs of the house.

[Photographs courtesy of Los Angeles Modern Auctions; original photographs by Julius Shulman of the J. R. Davidson Kingsley residence, to be sold with the corresponding lot on Sunday, May 19, 2013]
· Fate of J. R. Davidson House In Peril; Furniture to Go to Auction [LAMA]
· Mid-Century in Brentwood by Case Study Architect JR Davidson [Curbed LA]

Curbed LA

SELLER: Some say it’s Tom Cruise, but y’all should be skeptical of that
LOCATION: New York City, NY
PRICE: $ 28,000,000
SIZE: 8,300 square feet, 6 bedrooms,

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: In 2009 property gossips in New York City and around the globe went plain ol’ berserk over the wildfire celebrity real estate rumor that Tom Cruise and his then third and now ex wife Katie Cruise just might be the mysterious buyers who shelled out $ 15,075,000 for a stunning six floor townhouse on West 12th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in the heart of the Gold Coast in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

The speculation and rumors apparently got started by chit-chatting doormen on the block and they persisted even after both Mister Cruise and Missus Cruise—through their representatives, natch—issued denials of the much-alleged townhouse acquisition. Based on our own research into the scuttlebutt, Your Mama is not now and never was convinced that Mister and ex-Missus Cruise were the real buyers of the elegant1860 townhouse.

Whoever the owner may be, it has come to Your Mama’s attention by way of a short missive from our ever-intrepid aide de camp Hot Chocolate that the townhouse long alleged to have been bought by Mister and ex-Missus Cruist back in 2009 has popped back up on the market with an attention getting $ 28,000,000 price tag, and, well, it’s pretty damn spectacular.

Current listing details show the 21-foot wide and approximately 8,300 square foot townhouse, blessed with a magnificent wrought iron railed stoop, stands six stories above ground with an additional finished basement level below grade. There are a total five terraces, seven working fireplaces, 7.5 bathrooms, state of the art built-in surround sound and humidification systems, and an hydraulic elevator that conveniently services all but the penthouse level.  Listing details show the townhouse was worked over but good by accomplished New York City-based architect Steven Harris.

We counted six bedrooms on the floor plan included with online marketing materials, divvied up as follows: a staff suite with kitchenette and roomy full bathroom on the garden level; two ample, full-width bedrooms on the fifth floor, both with relatively compact windowless en suite facilities; two more smaller bedrooms on the fourth floor, one with small private study and puny bathroom and the other with small private terrace and unexpectedly spacious bathroom; and, finally, the master suite on the third floor that encompasses a full-width bedroom, a large walk-in closet plus additional closet space, and a luxuriously appointed but windowless marble bathroom with double sinks and cramped, windowless crapper cubby. The master bedroom connects through to the upper landing of the townhouse’s rear stairs where French doors open to a terrace that’s probably larger than a typical Greenwich Village studio apartment and the master bathroom has a back door into a street-facing library/private sitting room—also accessible from the stair hall—with built-in bookcases on either side of a fireplace.

The parlor floor hosts the primary public entertaining spaces and includes a vestibule entry and foyer, a cozy front parlor, and, separated by a short gallery that runs behind a well-placed powder pooper and elevator shaft, a more stately-scaled rear parlor. Beyond the rear parlor there’s a sunny sun room that could also be used as a formal dining room or den). On the garden level below, a den—or possible dining room—generously spans the full width of the house and has a could-be-awkward attached three-quarter bathroom. A short corridor links the den/dining room to a top quality double-wide galley kitchen that opens at the back through a bank of French doors to a slender garden/terrace that wraps around to an interior courtyard nestled in between the kitchen and the den/dining room.

A glassed in solarium on the penthouse level opens on opposites ends through vast panels of glass to a pair decks that have been well planted for privacy. The smaller, south-facing street-side deck is equipped with an enclosed outdoor shower and—buckle your safety belts for this one—a partially sunken Japanese soaking tub for which Your Mama is living, hunties, living. Not because we like to sit like stew meat in a vat of near boiling water—we decidedly don’t—but but The Dr. Cooter sure does, and on a regular basis. Had we a Redwood number like this on a drop-dead deck like that we might never have packed our bags and headed west. Anyways…

Whether Tom Cruise actually owns this show stopping townhouse or—as Your Mama thinks—it’s owned by a much less famous but even richer businessman, it’s a stunner sure to be a hot property, don’tcha think? Fer chrissakes, kids, about the only thing that might make this place better, really, would be a private garage. And, seriously, a person could suffocate holding their breath for an 8,000-plus square foot townhouse with a mid-block location on a prime street in the Greenwich Village Gold Coast with a private garage, you know? All real estate is a compromise even if it cost $ 28,000,000.

listing photos and floor plan: Brown Harris Stevens
The Real Estalker

Single-family home in Los Angeles, CA – Echo Park
Trulia Real Estate Search – Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES: The walkophiles at Los Angeles Walks are working on LA’s first-ever pedestrian campaign, both to promote walking in LA and to encourage a more walking-friendly environment. “Hey, I’m Walking Here!” (inspired by Ratso Rizzo) would include events, merch, a free publication on walking in LA (including tips for making neighborhoods more walkable), an action day for temporary pedestrian improvements (sort of like Park[ing] Day), and a “pilot program for a urban wayfinding system that helps walkers understand how many minutes it takes to walk to nearby landmarks.” LA Walks has launched a Kickstarter to raise money to fund all of this, and there are lots of neato rewards, including tickets to a dinner on June 1 held at a Rudolph Schindler remodel in Silver Lake. In short, a dedicated group of people are trying to make LA a better place to walk: yesssss. Much more here. [Curbed Inbox/Kickstarter]

VENICE: Been dying to get inside Google Los Angeles, aka the binocular building? Venice Art Walk & Auctions is holding its silent art auction there this year, plus they’ve also got bike tours, gallery shows, and more going on all month around the neighborhood (including a Family Fun Day outside the Google building). Things kick off Sunday with an artist studio tour into “never-before-seen studios east of Lincoln Ave. and west of Abbot Kinney Blvd.” All the info’s here. [Curbed Inbox]

Curbed LA