Atop a hill in suburban Los Angeles sits a glass and steel house with visible floor-to-ceiling windows, exposed beams and towering brick fireplace in a style architectural buffs could spot as the work of designer Craig Ellwood. It's those house design fans the brokers want to attract.
The property, known as the Smith House, was built in 1958 for J. Chris Smith and restored by James Tyler, an Ellwood associate, around 2017. Ellwood is known for his minimalistic, midcentury style, and he was considered a leader in California modernism between the 1950s and his retirement in 1977, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy. His firm's projects also included office towers. He died in 1992.
“It feels like a time capsule,” Morgan Phillips, one of the agents, told CoStar News. The property was listed in May by Phillips and Dalton Gomez of Christie’s International Realty for $3.5 million, according to CoStar’s Homes.com. It can also be leased for $11,495 per month.
The two-bedroom, two-bathroom T-shaped house spans just a bit more than 1,550 square feet. The property includes two outdoor terraces and an in-ground spa in Crestwood Hills, a coveted neighborhood of Brentwood, California.
The house was last purchased in July 2019 for $2.3 million, according to Homes.com data. That owner lived in the house for “only a brief period” before leasing it out, Phillips said. After leasing it, the owner decided to sell.
“These types of homes are like classic cars in a sense,” Phillips said. “Not everyone can daily drive classic, and not everyone can daily live in an original midcentury modern home.”
The agents used listings of the closest comparable houses from nearby property sales to help them determine pricing, according to Phillips.
“With architectural properties like this there can be a 30% to 60% markup I'd say, based on who completed the house and the condition of the house and how much of the originality is kept intact,” he said. “It was a balance of using comparables and taking into account Ellwood’s notoriety in Los Angeles.”
Now, the agent duo is tailoring the listing to appeal to architecture aficionados who might be interested in buying the property. They've emphasized its desirable location, too.
"Here is a rare opportunity to own or reside in a notable piece of architecture, in the coveted Crestwood Hills neighborhood of Brentwood," the agents wrote.
The agents hosted a first-look event for brokers on May 14 and have hosted more than one open house for the public to get word-of-mouth out about the property. Phillips said open houses at properties such as the Smith House draw in not just potential buyers but also fans of architects such as Ellwood who might know others who could be potential buyers. Ultimately though, the property is best suited to a very specific type of house shopper, he said.
“The buyer for this house really would have to be passionate about architecture, specifically midcentury,” Phillips said. “It’s a specific type of living that not everyone’s accustomed to, but those who are, I would say, really enjoy these types of houses.”
About That Listing explores how brokers market their properties.