This is one of those "if walls could speak" places. Aldous and Laura Huxley's presence is felt throughout this historic estate on Mulholland Drive that just came on the market at $1.95 million. Built in the 1930s, it very much remains a period house. The 4,000-square-foot four-bedroom, three-bathroom Spanish Mission-style home is situated on 30,000 square feet of gardens and meditation paths -- all perched under the Hollywood sign, which is visible from the home's northern windows.

Aldous Huxley showed us his "Brave New World" -- a futuristic society based on pleasure without moral repercussions -- and in doing so challenged the thinking of a generation. Although that novel wasn't written in this house, "Island" -- his final one -- was finished here. The Huxleys had been living two streets away on Deronda Drive in a house that burned in 1961. They escaped with just two possessions: his "Island" manuscript and her violin.

Aldous Huxley lived in this house just two years before his death in 1963, the day of President Kennedy's assassination. It was his wife's home until her death in December at age 96.

Laura Huxley was a distinguished writer in her own right and frequently entertained in this house, which became a salon for intellectuals and free thinkers. Among the long list of guests at this social hive were Ben Kingsley, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Buckminster Fuller and Ram Dass, according to Stacy Valis, the estate's administrator and a longtime family friend.

The house has a two-story living room with arched windows and a minstrel's balcony. In the center is a slump-stone brick fireplace. The room has a hand-carved and vaulted ceiling, and peg-and-groove wood flooring. The outside dining loggia is framed with massive plaster archways and includes a brick fireplace.

The kitchen has original tile and period hardware.

Timothy Enright of the Enright Co. has the listing.

The Deronda site -- what remains of the Huxleys' burned home sits on three lots -- was recently sold by the estate for $1,025,000. The buyer, Matthew Luber, president and owner of Luber Roklin Entertainment Co., plans to build on the 27,000 square feet of largely flat land, said the selling agent, Jason Reitz of Rock Real Estate. Patricia Carroll, owner of Hollywood-land Realty, and Lamonta Pierson, of that office, handled the listing of the lots.