It’s Valentino’s long-lost love
Rudolph Valentino often visited this home while it was being built for him on the eastern shore of Lake Sherwood starting in 1920.
Unfortunately, the silent-screen star, who died in 1926, didn’t live long enough to see the retreat completed in 1931.
Today, the hillside house, originally a one-story with a loft, has a three-level addition. It took actress Dana Sparks (“Passions,” “L.A. Law,” “JAG”) and her golfer/film-investor husband, Steve, 2 1/2 years to add on to the red-rock castle, known as Casa Della Madonna.
About this house: The legendary Conejo Valley home is perched on a rocky slope hardly visible from the road that winds around the lake. When built by set designer George Reynolds, the home was meant to be a copy of a castle on the shores of Lake Como in the Italian Alps. The Sparks finished their addition and refurbishing in 2004.
Asking price: $5.3 million
Size: There are three bedrooms and four bathrooms in 5,300 square feet. The house is on a 35,000-square-foot double lot.
Features: Sweeping views of the lake and mountains; floors made of stone, distressed teak and handmade tile; 2-foot-thick stone walls; cathedral beams in the living room; 150 feet of lakefront; a boathouse and a dock.
Where: Lake Sherwood, Thousand Oaks.
Listing agent: Drew Mandile, (310) 786-1803, and Brooke Knapp, (310) 786-1802, both at Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills, along with Erin Pohl and Bob Pearson of Coldwell Banker, Westlake Village, (805) 230-3308.
To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, please send color interior and exterior photos on a CD with caption information and a description of the house, including what makes the property unusual, to Ruth Ryon, Real Estate Section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012; or e-mail homeoftheweek@latimes.com.
