Book on Neff to Be Introduced in ‘His’ House

Wallace Neff, known as “the architect to the stars,” died in 1982, but his work lives on in many mansions he created in the ‘20s and ‘30s and in a book that will be presented for the first time today.

Conceived by Neff’s son and namesake, Wallace (Wally) Neff, the coffee-table type art book--”Wallace Neff, Architect of California’s Golden Age”--will be introduced at a gathering of a couple hundred of the architect’s fans at one of the best examples, if not the best example, of a Neff-designed home.

“The party will be at one of his dad’s best houses--’best’ because it’s how everybody pictures a Southern California estate,” said Jeff Hyland, a Beverly Hills real estate broker who helped Neff’s son, a Laguna Niguel real estate broker, research the book and who will co-host the party.

What comes to mind when people think of a California estate built, as this one was, in the heyday of the ‘20s is what Hyland described as “a romantic home on a fabulous piece of property.”

The home where the party will be held is romantic in style--which is Spanish Colonial Revival, with balconies, balustrades, about an acre of rolling lawns in front of the main house and a pine forest with trees more than a century old. The home also has a romantic past.

It was built for silent-screen, cowboy star Fred Thomson and his wife, Academy Award-winning screenwriter and World War I correspondent Frances Marion, and they entertained lavishly with lawn parties for 200 or 300 guests, including such greats of the entertainment world as Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Marie Dressler and Max Reinhart, who remarked, while repaying a visit after Marion had been his guest in Germany: “I apologize for my oh-so-small castle.”

Guest House Destroyed

The home where the party will be held is large--with a 10,000-square-foot main house, caretaker’s cottage, gate house, chauffeur’s quarters and stables (it also had a three-story guest house, which burned down)--and is on a fabulous piece of property: 120 acres in Beverly Hills.

“One reason Neff was so successful as an architect was that he secured the greatest sites for the celebrities that were emerging in the ‘20s,” Hyland said. “Then, of course, Neff probably had his pick of the lots.”

The architect only picked 13 acres for the Thomson/Marion home, but the site was on the highest hilltop overlooking Beverly Hills, yet it had miles of trails for Thomson’s horses. “He had 20, and every one was white,” Hyland noted. “Each was trained to do another part of his act.”

Today the home is the largest estate on the Westside, thanks to the foresight of Paul Kollsman, who bought the property 25 years ago and since then acquired the additional land.

Owners’ Contributions

Kollsman, who invented a barometric altimeter and 23 other patented devices, died the same year as the architect, but the home is still owned by his widow, Eva, who was pleased to open it today to the invited guests, who include many other owners of Neff-designed homes.

The list of owners, past and present, looks like a “Who’s Who of Hollywood,” and Neff’s son managed, during the couple of decades he has spent compiling items about his father, to get some of these and other luminaries to provide statements for his 260-page, $50 book, published by Capra Press in Santa Barbara.

Among the contributors: Cary Grant, Jack Lemmon, Mary Pickford, Joan Bennett, Mrs. Harpo Marx, Mrs. Harry Culver and her daughter, Patricia (Harry Culver founded Culver City), producer Richard Zanuck, son of movie mogul Darryl F. Zanuck, and architectural historian David Gebhard.

Alson Clark, director of the Architecture and Fine Arts Library at USC, completed the rest of the text. Like the younger Neff, Clark bears the name of his father, who was a well-known early California artist.

Another son of a famous father--a fellow who became famous himself--also contributed to the book: Douglas Fairbanks Jr. His dashing dad bought a Beverly Hills hunting lodge in 1919 and commissioned architect Neff to remodel it into a residence, which became known as “Pickfair” for its owners: actor Fairbanks Sr. and his bride, actress Mary Pickford.

Pictures of Pickfair

“My father begged them to tear it down,” the younger Neff said, “but they were sentimental about meeting there, so he did his best to make the hunting lodge look like the home of a lady. It still wasn’t his cup of tea, but he cleaned it up, softened the windows and took off the timbers and gables.”

In his book, the younger Neff included pictures of Pickfair before and after it was remodeled by his father. “There are some pictures of Pickfair that have never before been shown to the public,” he said.

The book has photos of and copy about the homes Neff designed that belonged to Cary Grant and Barbara Hutton, Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, Joan Bennett, Jack Lemmon, Red Skelton, Darryl F. Zanuck and silent-film director Fred Niblo, whose home was later purchased by philanthropist Jules Stein and, within the past year, by media magnate Rupert Murdoch.

It talks about the homes Neff designed for movie mogul Louis B. Mayer’s daughter in Bel-Air (it was a wedding present); King Gillette (inventor of the disposable razor) on a 1,000-acre estate in Malibu (now owned by a Japanese religious group, the property has been whittled down to a couple of hundred acres), and opera star Amelita Galli-Curci in Westwood. Galli-Curci’s house is currently owned by actor Carroll O’Connor.

Fairbanks Ranch

The book talks about Fairbanks Ranch, which Douglas Fairbanks Sr. once owned and named Rancho Zorro after one of his movie hits. Architect Neff designed a house for the actor and Mary Pickford, which was never built but was used as the basis for a design of a house that was recently completed there.

That was one of the few houses Neff designed that wasn’t built under his tutelage. Another was a mansion, designed for Edward L. Doheny Jr. However, the oilman was murdered in his 46,054-square-foot Beverly Hills home, Greystone, in 1928.

Neff would have created an even grander home than Greystone for Doheny, the younger Neff said. He calls it “the pink palace.” A sketch of it is on his book’s cover.

It is one of 250 houses listed in the book that Neff designed. “But there are more,” the younger Neff conceded, and his father also designed the Ojai Valley Inn.

The houses are all in Southern California--mostly in Beverly Hills, Bel-Air, Pasadena and San Marino, with a few in Santa Barbara and one in Pebble Beach--but Neff also designed homes that were constructed in Africa, Pakistan, Brazil, Mexico and Portugal.

Neff Wrote Book

Called “balloon houses,” they were built at low cost in a single day--quite a contrast with the elaborate, European-inspired mansions he designed for the rich and famous. (Born in 1895 in La Mirada, Neff spent a few years of his youth with his family in Europe.)

In 1964, Neff wrote a book about himself, but that’s what prompted his son to write his own.

“I just kept thinking how much more there was to show of my father’s work,” he said. “Besides being talented, he had a great sense of proportion and imagination, but his book had hardly any drawings and no real text.

“Anyway, my favorite pictures weren’t included, including one of the house where we’re holding the party.”