David Lynch LA House (opens in new tab)

Hopefully something like the Getty can scrounge up $15m from the couch cushions. Would be a nice museum of some sort.

Thanks it was a nice read.

Great read, thank you!

> Truly a peaceful property

What you don’t realize if you’ve never spent time around those ridiculous properties is the amount of upkeep everything takes if you don’t want the indoors to become gross and dusty and the outdoors a wild jungle.

When you have that kind of surface area, you’re not taking care of all the cleaning and maintenance yourself in a few hours once a week. There are countless gardeners/cleaners/repair workers/etc on the property. Nothing peaceful about it.

And you have to also be okay with the labor dynamics of employing such an army of personnel which in LA is… interesting.

If you're dropping $15m you aren't worried about property taxes regardless of how much they do or do not increase.

Looking at the full set of photos in the Zillow link that esalman posted, sorry, but that kitchen has gotta go.

I was lucky enough to stay in a beach house designed by either the son or grandson of Frank Lloyd Wright. So many amazing architectural details including natural cooling towers. I was young then and didn't really get to appreciate it the house since I was spending my time on the water. But I did take photos and see something interesting every time it rotates through my iPhoto library.

LA is huge and just like SF has neighborhoods so does LA except sprawled over way more acreage. LA is slightly cheaper than SF because it’s so large geographically - in SF you can drive across the city in 30 minutes. LA is several hours across.

Its pretty easy to understand actually, and all of metropolitan California is the same way- A normal, dual income, middle class working family has an income of ~$250K-$500K (Doctor + teacher, Lawyer and a Doctor, Business exec and Accountant, etc) and they're going to spend upwards of ~40% of their income on their house. thats going to have them spending $6K-$11K. Now they can handle a $1M home no problem. 3 bed 2 bath shitbox from the 70s sure thing... Anything to live in California. Same house in Kansas City is $300K but whatever. However, for them to go after a $2.5M+ property you need real money, a $5M house even more... you aren't working a normal person job to spend the estimated lifetime earnings of most Americans on a house... it just aint happening. So anything after ~$5M is a VASTLY better deal then the rat race housing.

All of these dynamics can be figured out pretty easy thanks to prop 13, Californias insane income taxes, and the job market... if you can figure out a way to buy a house, hold on to it for dear life, never move, and work your entire life to pay for it. The only thing more consistent than people in the northeast wanting to move to California are death and taxes, which coincidentally prop 13 covers. lol

I worked on a house occupied by heavy smokers for a couple decades (then they died).

Nicotine yellow everything.

We pumped it full of ozone. That did a good job destinking. Then we painted everything with killz.

We also sterilized the basement with uv deathlights.

There was an auction of a lot of his memorabilia a few months ago, it included a lot of Festool stuff. He was an avid woodworker (the sale also included furniture he made). I like how the work table where you can see the miter saw is made of the most utilitarian plywood, it feels like he was working until his last days

My thought was: "Wow, he must've gotten a great deal on those, or else ordered far too many and was stuck finding places for them..."

The house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's son. Maybe he was influenced by the concrete blocks from the Millard House. https://www.architecturelab.net/millard-house-frank-lloyd-wr...

I don't but wanted to say that I love the continuity of them used in different spaces. The whole place really looks like a single vision put together and not a bunch of disparate rooms.

They remind me of the floor of the black lodge in Twin Peaks.

I'm guessing he liked it, visually.

And just maybe it symbolized something for him. Low maybe.

TFA says “The facade’s cement chevrons catch the sun” but I’m not sure about the ones inside.

Definitely not much of a chef!

> When I get up, I have a cappuccino - that's breakfast. I don't have any food till lunch. I get into phases where I'll have the same thing every day. Lately I've been having feta cheese, olive oil and vinegar, tomatoes, and some tuna fish mixed together. Before that I was having tuna fish on lettuce and cottage cheese, but I got tired of that in about three months. I once had the same thing for lunch every day for seven years - a Bob's Big Boy chocolate shake and coffee at 2:30 every afternoon.

[0]: https://www.lynchnet.com/mcdl.html

You may be right but it’s worth noting that many mid century kitchens - including my own - were less focused on hospitality in the kitchen and more on efficiency. In some cases this was because homes had hired help.

My MCM kitchen is large enough to host but the cooking area is like this galley. I love to cook. Having lived in a home with with a huge open kitchen, I vastly prefer this galley style. It really does save time. When you’re doing a few things at once, a large kitchen with a lot of space between stations is a liability.

Looking at other houses in the neighborhood, it's probably about 10-15% because it's the Lynch residence, and the rest of it is the extent of the land, the number of houses, and, of course, the place where it is.

By way of contrast, this is listed for 2.5x the money on the other side of the canyon:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1851-N-Stanley-Ave-Los-An...

i lived about a half mile from this house in the same neighborhood -- it could be a lot more expensive if it had the view some properties around there have.

note that mulholland dr is just up the street from the house. this overlook is worth a visit: https://maps.app.goo.gl/muMirzaSJsEt9YnR7

It's also (partly) a Frank Lloyd Wright house, that alone would justify a very high price

To each their own I guess but I think this is a beautiful home. My home was built at the same time (1965) and seems to share a lot of characteristics to David’s home, although my house is much smaller.

You’d be surprised how hard it is find houses like this. Many of them have been gutted and rehabbed into “open” floor plans, with a lot of white paint and white barn doors.

This is unfortunate because house builders back then really knew how to create distinctive spaces.

This home has a lot of beautiful light, feels very airy and open, and yet feels very distinctive and characteristic.

Probably the biggest drawback and challenge will be, as other commenters have pointed out, that Lynch smoked packs a day and getting that out will be tough.

Otherwise there absolutely buyers who would love this home.

So what about that non-spare $15m..? I mean it's Lynch's house. You never know there might a red room and all that somewhere hidden. Just saying.

What a dreary sad anachronistic description.