James Ellroy’s Hollywood Hills home for sale at $1.3 million

If dark thoughts of murder and conspiracy, politics and prejudice, Los Angeles and its dirty habits keep you up at night, perhaps you’re the right person to buy writer James Ellroy’s house.

Item: James Ellroy’s Hollywood Hills home hits the market for a cool $1.3 million.

Item: Those hip to the Hollywood low-down know Ellroy is the author of the novels “The Black Dahlia,” “The Big Nowhere,” “L.A. Confidential” and “White Jazz,” his first L.A. quartet; the Underworld U.S.A. trilogy, “American Tabloid,” “The Cold Six Thousand,” “Blood’s a Rover”; the memoir “My Dark Places” and more.

Item: The Demon Dog of American crime fiction’s furnishings include multiple editions of his books and a poster of his latest, the opener to his second L.A. quartet, “Perfidia.”

Item: The house is located above Franklin Avenue at 2252 Bronson Hill Drive, the road there not unlike the one to Pierce Patchett’s place in “L.A. Confidential”: “all uphill, mansions fronted by palm trees.”

Item: The movie version of “L.A. Confidential” used the architecturally significant Lovell House, designed by Richard Neutra, as Patchett’s modern-minimalist digs. That was a departure from the book, which described Patchett’s place as “a big pseudo-Spanish: one story, low slate roof.”

Item: Ellroy’s house is Spanish-style, and, just under 2,000 square feet, fairly big, but it’s got two stories. There are three bedrooms, a private enclosed garden off the living room and new marble counters in the kitchen.

Item: As necessary for a master of modern noir, there’s a writing office. Don’t be intimidated by all those framed book covers on the wall.

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