Style

Real Estate PITT AND ANISTON LIVED HERE Coveted and Crash- Proof As houses by famed architect Wallace Neff continue to trade at big numbers, a book shows his original designs By Degen Pener 1

1 Listed t’s been a busy 12 months with Hilton & for Wallace Neff trading. In Hyland for I $44.5 million. FORMER June, designer Serge Azria 2 The new HOME OF book on plunked down $16.5 million for a Wallace Neff. 1920s Spanish home in Bel Air co- 3 This Neff was sold in June by designed by Neff and John Byers Rodeo Realty’s Josh Flagg and once owned by Diane Keaton. to Serge Azria. In May, Ry Cooder paid $2.5 mil- 2 lion ($300,000 above asking) for another Spanish home built Mediterranean influences. Neff’s by the architect-to-the-stars of most famous commission was Hollywood’s golden renovating Pickfair for Mary 3 age. In 2019, Bill Bell, Pickford and Jr. an heir to the Another into a grand Tudor estate. World soap opera for- Now, a new book, Wallace Neff available locally,” says Parsons, Netflix’sTed Sarandos was on the Keaton tune, and wife Maria (Angel City Press, $60) — written executive director of the architec- cover) and will continue this fall sold a Bel Air estate, by real estate agent Bret Parsons, tural division at Compass Beverly with a volume on Paul Williams, built in the 1930s for architect Marc Appleton and Hills. The book offers peeks the first Black member of the producer Sol Wurtzel, design expert Eleanor Schrader — inside estates built for the likes of American Institute of Architects. for $31 million. includes the original Architectural King Vidor and director There are two Neffs now on Pitt Born into one of Digest stories that ran when and houses later owned by Reese the market, a 1934 home (listed the families that 28 Neff homes were built. “Neff Witherspoon, James Murdoch and for $44.5 million) built for actor founded map publishers Rand was sublime at buildings that . It is part of a series, and later owned by McNally, Neff, who died in 1982 appear to organically emerge Master Architects of Southern and Jennifer Aniston, at 87, is known as a creator of from the earth. He liberally used California, that began with a and a 1929 residence ($15 mil- what’s called the California style, adobe, plaster, beams and tile tome on Gordon Kaufmann in lion) in Beverly Hills that was a mix of Spanish and broadly floors, all made from ingredients 2016 (the Hancock Park house of significantly enlarged. Parsons’ one plea to potential buyers: “If you are going to tear them down, go buy something else.” He laments the destruction of Neff homes over the years, includ- Listed: Homes by Modernist Masters ing Pickfair (almost entirely torn down by Meshulam Riklis in 714 6TH AVE., 1990) and houses demolished by VENICE This three-bedroom, Jon Peters (the Vidor residence) 2,800-square-foot and Paul Allen, who in 2000 Brutalist-style home took down a Beverly Hills estate was built in 1988 called Enchanted Hill built for by architect Charles Hollywood couple Frances Marion Ward. It’s listed Fred Thomson by Douglas Elliman’s 949 TORO CANYON ROAD, MONTECITO Architect Barton and in the 1920s. Mark Kitching at Myers’ four-bedroom pavilion-like abode on 39 acres is for Says Parsons, “It was like destroy- $3.5 million. sale by Sotheby’s International Realty for $8.2 million. ing a Picasso.” NEFF EXTERIOR: ANTHONY & HYLAND. BARCELO/HILTON BOOK: PRESS. NEFF COURTESY INTERIOR: OF TAILWATER NICK SPRINGETT/RODEO KEATON: REALTY. TIBRINA HOBSON/GETTY IMAGES. STEVE PITT: GRANITZ/WIREIMAGE. VENICE: NOEL KLEINMAN/DOUGLAS ELLIMAN. TORO: FRAN COLLIN.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 34 JULY 8, 2020