Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Aziz Ansari Nabs 1960s City View Modern

BUYER: Aziz Ansari
LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA
PRICE: $2,687,000
SIZE: 3,016 square feet, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: As with yesterday's discussion, we have plugged-in real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak and the ever-so-powerfully well-informed Lucy Spillerguts to thank for today's discussion about dernier cri stand-up comedian and actor Aziz Ansari who has popped his real estate cherry with the $2,687,000 off-market acquisition of a Asian-inspired contemporary post-and-beam confection custom built in the late 1960s by an associate of the venerable Buff and Hensman firm in L.A.'s celeb-filled Los Feliz area.*

Mister Ansari, thirty years old and Indian by ethnicity but a born and raised native of South Carolina, is probably best known to the television-watching world for his role as the over-confident underachiever Tom Haverford on the the sitcom Parks and Recreation. The suit-favoring food aficionado has also popped up in a number of movies (I Love You Man, Get Him to the Greek, 30 Minutes or Less) and a handful of boob-toob programs (Reno 911, Scrubs). He still works the stand-up tour circuit and his latest (and third) comedy special, Buried Alive, was released last week on Netflix. We've seen it. We laughed. We loved it. Anyways...

Listing details that the ever-resourceful Yolanda dug up on the interenets and kindly forwarded to Your Mama indicates the painstakingly angular two-story house, which has a not-so-vague and certainly on-purpose resemblance to a bird in flight, has four bedrooms and three bathrooms in 3,016 square feet of mid-century modern-era interior space that's all but pickled in architectural amber with many if not most details and fixtures solidly intact.

A circular drive passes under a decoratively screened porte-cochere that does double-duty as the residence's two-car carport. Locked gates on either side of the carport open to high-walled courtyards, one lushly planted with a raised lounging deck and the other a perfect dog run with a wee patch of tree-shaded and sun-dappled grass.

The essentially symmetrical layout of the main floor revolves around a center hall foyer with (yummy) charcoal-colored terrazzo floors and an open-tread floating staircase that's sure to baffle boozy-eyed users. Under a deep exterior overhang a thrillingly tall wall of windows fills the room with ambient natural light.

A cook-friendly center island kitchen, on axis directly behind the foyer, still has the original oil-rubbed walnut cabinetry but has been lightly (and sensibly) upgraded with engineered stone counter tops and high-grade, up-to-date appliances. The kitchen is flanked on one side by a roomy parquet-floored living/dining room anchored by a huge fireplace and a wall of built-in bookshelves topped by triangular clerestory windows and on the other by a slightly smaller but also parquet-floor den/study/dining/family room. Both spaces have voluminous, steep-pitched vaulted ceilings and connect through wall-wide banks of sliding glass doors to the outdoor entertaining areas that run along the back of the house.

As best as Your Mama can tell all three of the guest/family bedrooms are located on the second floor along with a lone hall bathroom and an airy master bedroom defined by a high-pitched vaulted ceiling and an solid wall of glass that opens to a private deck with panoramic views over Hollywood and Los Angeles. The attached master bathroom appears to be an extraordinarily well-maintained vintage affair but is—at least for Your Mama, anyways—entirely too earth tonal in its palette. The children will note a chocolate brown wall-mounted telephone next to the crapper. Once upon a time, a wall-mounted phone next to the toilet was a convenient, hotel-style extravagance but nowadays, thanks to mobile phones, is charmingly obsolete.

Both the living room and the den/study/family room open through wide glass sliders to entertainment terraces tucked under deep and soaring eaves. Off the living room there's an outdoor living room/lounge and off the den there's a dining area with built-in barbecue. A deck extends the outdoor living areas out beyond the eaves and around a swimming pool and separate, circular spa. A short but wide row of hedges preserves privacy from the street and houses below but still allows for sweeping city and sky views.

*Iffin we're being honest—and we always are—we'd confess that we really don't know if this is the first house Mister Ansari has ever purchased. Alls we really know, butter beans, is that this is the first house this property gossip knows Mister Ansari to have bought. Okay? Okay.

listing photos: Hollywood Hills Homes

16 comments:

lil' gay boy said...

Another street-to-street house with an inappropriate parquet floor -- however...

Love the terrazzo as well; an unlikely shade for the period but, as Mama puts it, "yummy" nonetheless. The geometry, although rigorous, is never gratuitous -- me like.

Appears to be pretty well preserved and in need of just a light touch of TLC/updating (refreshment rather than obstreperous homage).

Rather reminds me of a comment one of Wright's clients made -- "...it bears the countenance of principle".

But those drapes, monogrammed throw & parquet would have to go.

Anonymous said...

Confidential to LGB:

The Rabbi agrees that the new Ansari home could benefit from the lightest of updating, while avoiding an obeisant, obfuscatory, obsequious, obstinate, and obstreperous approach.

Nevertheless, the Rabbi wishes to express the most respectful disagreement, in that she experiences both the parquet floor and pinched-pleated drapes to be 1960s-consonant.

Yours for Better Homes and Gardens,
Rabbi Hedda LaCasa

Sheriff said...

Beautiful and at a very good price. It may have sold for more if it was placed on the open market. It would not have lasted more than a week.

lil' gay boy said...

Dearest Rebbe,

I couldn't agree more -- my only reservation about those two elements is that those drapes strike me as superfluous -- the house is on a steep grade & the roof of the one across the street sits well below the pool. It's always been my personal idiosyncrasy that if they are not needed for privacy, one should do without -- especially in an MCM.

As for the parquet, in and of itself it is lovely; it's just that it competes with the ceiling, and for me that's the real story of the room (I'd ditch the track lighting, too).

Perhaps it's just rose colored glasses obstructing my view; this house in many ways resembles our beloved former summer home, with the high peaked & beamed wood ceilings & walls of glass -- sans drapes as the wooded lot was large & secluded enough.

Rosco Mare said...

I really like the chalet-feel of this house. LOVE the terrazzo floors, the long shelves in the living room, and the original kitchen cabinetry. I once had similar kitchen woodwork in teak that was oiled and rubbed down every year (make of that what you will!). No longer fond of clestory windows that allow sunlight to fade interiors. I think the brick pilasters flanking the fireplace are distracting, and as our Mama Dearest might say, upsetting.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like curtains for concealing interiors, if necessary. And I don't like sleeping in a room without them. Maybe it's the WASP in me, I don't know. Maybe Rabbi Hedda can shed some light...get it? Shed some light? Ha ha ha...

Trikc said...

I totally agree those parquet floors have to go, but it's a mid century classic and looks like it could get it's own spread in Dwell.

Sandpiper said...

Lots to love here. Most of it is so nice. I don't get the clunky looking upper deck design. Seems in direct opposition to the period. And I'm totally dumbstruck over those vertical blinds in the roof peak windows. What's up with that?

West Bourne said...

Curbed LA has this link to Julius Schulman photos from 1969.

http://rosettaapp.getty.edu:1801/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE81416

Mama will note the wet bar opposite the floating staircase. Also, a lot of the house appears to be intact. The parquet floors look to be original and LGB, there is nary a drape in sight.

The MGBGT in the driveway brings back some fond memories.

Candy Spelling said...

Cute house, but The Manor is truly the originator of that "bird-like" style.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Candy, The Manor absolutely defines "albatross."

Verandah and Patti

lil' gay boy said...

West Bourne,

Thanks for the link; if the Getty ever brings their server back on line this AM, I'll be sure to visit (it's down right now).

Modern Homes LA has a nice history of the house, including some badly colored sales photos from 2007; oddly enough, the terrazzo appears to have been covered with Saltillo tiles at the time, mercifully removed, and the parquet largely covered with rugs.

I too found the vertical blinds egregious, but I must contradict my fine feathered friend on the master deck -- the railing is identical to our aforementioned summer home, completed in July '69.

If you'll note in the photos, the deep overhangs block the high summer sun, but allow the lower winter sun to warm the interiors -- thus forestalling much of the fading that concerns my dear Rosco Mare.

Verandah and Patti, tee hee hee!

Anonymous said...

Great party house, congrats Aziz.

bentley said...

A very satisfying staircase, indeed.

Not usually my go-to style, but I looooove this place. Totally digging the chalet vibe, also.

Does Your Mama's 'Decorative Book of Whathaveyou's' include never, ever, having pillows with fucking cheesy-ass writing on them? If not, please update.

Anonymous said...

Clearly you people have never stepped foot in a proper house because this pile of crap is a teardown. The only thing left should be the pool and the deck.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sophisticated enough to understand these things, but isn't this place kind of like a classic Eichler on steroids?

I particularly love the vintage color photo where a woman is lounging out near the pool, playing what appears to be some kind of Chinese lute! Its all very Sunset-Magazine-feature-article 1970.

Gilded Singing Sarah said...

This just makes me want to jump off the balcony into the pool... if I did that sort of thing... which I don't... yet.
That is not a suggestion Harris. Listen to your mother. She knows what's up.