Great to hear that Lilian Rice is getting a statue – and a remodel! Meet the participants at bottom:
This month, a life-size statue of the late Lilian J. Rice will arrive at the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society in preparation for its ultimate destination at the town’s civic center envisioned by the architect back in the 1920s. It will officially be unveiled in May with much-deserved fanfare.
Meanwhile, down the street, an altogether different tribute is underway at a single-level Spanish Revival 3,900-square-foot residence built by Rice for a California-dreaming New Jersey family in 1926.
Come spring, it will get its own place in the sun thanks to a duo of San Diego design powerhouses. Del Mar interior designer Michelle Salz-Smith and Lisa Kriedeman, principal of Island Architects, are seizing a rare opportunity to expand and modernize the organic style pioneered by Rice nearly a century ago.
Michelle Salz-Smith creates her own form of minimal eclecticism, where raw materials, hand-forged objects, and distinctive shapes create one-of-a-kind homes in which people commune, contemplate, and connect: https://www.studio-surface.com/home
Tony Crisafi and Lisa Kriedeman are the highly accomplished principal architects creating residences of quiet luxury throughout Southern California, nationally and internationally for more than two decades. https://www.islandarch.com/
Barron Hilton’s $75 MILLION Historic Bel-Air Estate Listed by Rick and Barron Hilton
After nearly 60 years, the family is parting with the historic Los Angeles property, which has only had two owners—the other was a cofounder of CBS. The Beverly Hills developer and cofounder at Hilton & Hyland is putting the primary residence of his late father, W. Barron Hilton, on the market for $75 million.
Inside, the 12-bedroom, 11-bathroom house features several grand entertaining rooms, including a step-down living room and formal dining room. But one of the smallest rooms on-site may pack the most prestige for a future buyer: the executive office. With built-in hardwood and pine library shelving, the 200-square-foot room once served as the study of not just one, but two legendary business magnates.
The 15,000-square-foot estate was designed by Paul R. Williams, a pioneering Black architect, who also built homes for Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
Nestled in the heart of tony Holmby Hills, the exterior marries classic Bel-Air style with traditional English Georgian architecture. Past the wrought-iron gates, two circular driveway paths lead to a grand motor court, bringing you face-to-face with the Hiltons’ Brooklawn Estate and its white brick façade. The double doors open to a modernist interior. Your eyes are instantly drawn to a framed picture window that offers a view of the expansive great lawn, as well as the pool house, which appeared on the cover of Architectural Digest in 1933, in the distance.
Jay Paley, whose family founded the Congress Cigar Company and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), commissioned Williams in 1935. The cost to build the house was estimated at $100,000 (or about $1.8 million today.) Upon Paley’s death in 1961, the estate was subdivided but the house and bulk of the land was sold to Barron Hilton. The hotel magnate, who raised his family and lived there until his death last year at the age of 91, began his hotelier career as an elevator operator at father Conrad Hilton’s (d. 1972) El Paso Hilton. Initially resisting following in his dad’s footsteps, he founded Carte Blanche Credit Card, Air Finance Corporation and AFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, and helped negotiate the merger with NFL to create the Super Bowl. He returned to Hilton Hotels, and was named president and CEO in 1966.
Williams was the mastermind behind the Zodiac Pool; its ornate flooring consists of thousands of hand-painted, multi-colored tiles. The mosaic details all 12 astrological signs with a Grecian palette of turquoise, sky and platinum blues. A cameo of rich yellow fills in the sun, the focal point of the masterpiece, as well as its rays that extend across the pool’s nearly Olympic length.
-Forbes
After an extensive search for an Eichler that would feel like their own, Michelle Wahlen and Thierry Zamora found their perfect midcentury home in Marin County, CA. Designed by Anshen & Allen – best known as the initial designers of Eichler homes – the home features a stunning atrium, which was a strong point in the decision making process to purchase.
Through renovation and design, Michelle and Thierry appropriated the home to their own accord while remaining true to its original midcentury character.
The six-bedroom home spans about 5,800 square feet, according to the listing. It has a 10-person Jacuzzi overlooking a fire pit, a long oceanfront deck, limestone flooring, and a swimming pool.
Mr. Gates, one of the world’s richest people and the co-founder of Microsoft, has been in the public eye recently due to his early warnings about the global pandemic. This purchase adds to the couple’s already sprawling real estate portfolio, although Mr. Gates has historically treated his compound in Medina, Wash., as his primary home. In 2014, he also bought weight-loss guru Jenny Craig’s Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., equestrian estate for $18 million.
Fans of the historical homes in San Diego can see a bunch of them next weekend, with 93 participating sites in nine neighborhoods and three days to see it all:
On Friday we closed escrow on another sale of a Lloyd Ruocco classic – two in a row! This one was 20 years older (1947) and in Mission Hills with a panoramic view of the city, ocean and bay.
MISSION HILLS MODERN! Architect Lloyd Ruocco’s Keller Residence is one of the first post-War modern homes in all of San Diego! Enjoy views of Downtown & Point Loma to the Coronado Islands and beyond. Contemporary finishes blend seamlessly with original, vintage design as the interior blurs with the exterior landscape. Retreat to this culdesac location and enjoy an incomparable setting of privacy amidst the urban landscape. Historically designated, incredible Mills Act tax savings conveys!
It’s rare to get a 15-page history on a house – this goes back to the beginning:
James Don Keller was the district attorney of San Diego between 1946-1971 (and probably knew my grandfather who was district attorney of Alameda County in 1947-1969).
The house on Puterbaugh was the second house designed by Ruocco for the Kellers – the first was in National City, and the third was 9405 La Jolla Farms Rd.
You may have seen the Wall Street Journal’s feature on Papa Doug’s listing that he’s hoping to sell for $10 million more than he paid in 2015. The Reader picked up a few more details – an excerpt:
Manchester finally managed to untie the knot with first wife Betsy, whom he married in January 1965, in 2013. During the couple’s contentious four-year-long divorce proceedings, Betsy unrolled a bevy of anecdotes about her husband’s over-the-top lifestyle.
“As an example of the standard of living that DOUG and I enjoyed during our long marriage, in 2007, we threw a birthday party for DOUG at the Manchester Grand Hyatt,” wrote Betsy.
“There were over 220 guests, and the party alone cost more than $200,000. We then flew to Costa Rica on a private Gulfstream IV jet and went on a week-long cruise in Costa Rica aboard a chartered 165-foot private yacht. After the cruise, we returned home on the Gulfstream IV jet.
“The Costa Rica trip cost in excess of $350,000.”
Manchester married Geniya the weekend before Christmas 2013 in similar style, causing one neighbor to complain on Twitter, “Did Papa Doug Manchester have to disturb all of Carmel Valley with his marriage fireworks last night? My dog barking like crazy.”
Then followed a merry-go-round of high-society party life and eight-figure residential real estate deals, including the purchase in 2015 of the historic Fairholme estate in Newport, Rhode Island for $15 million, which he flipped for a reported $16.1 million in February of 2016
Also, in 2015, Manchester picked up Foxhill, the sprawling La Jolla estate of the late Union-Tribune publisher Helen Copley, from the estate of her son David for about $27 million. He subsequently sunk additional millions into the property for extra bedrooms and other accouterments to accommodate his wife and the couple’s three young children.
Now, with his latest try at homespun marital bliss history, per the court filings, Manchester, father of a total of eight children and grandfather of thirteen, has placed the real estate on the market in two parcels, asking $37 million for both.
“Mr. Manchester’s spokeswoman said he is selling to ‘ downsize,’ reports the Wall Street Journal, which also offers a description of what it calls “an elaborate French chateau-style estate” equipped with “its own four-hole golf course.”
“The estate is about 27,000 square feet and has historic flair, with four-poster beds, gilded detailing, original moldings, wood paneling, chandeliers and stained-glass windows,” according to the account.
“A billiards room is outfitted with plaid carpeting; lampshades have fringe details topped with gold fox ornaments. One of the bedrooms has blue coffered ceilings, blue patterned carpeting, and gold-and-blue curtains with ornate tassels.”
