Basking in rustic refinement
A hunting lodge in the middle of Los Angeles seems a fanciful folly today. But in 1929, foxes, cougars and deer roamed freely in the hills of Los Feliz.
At the age of 69 and widowed, Leona P. Wood commissioned this half-timbered, Norman-style hunting lodge. It took at least five years to complete.
Wood was reportedly an artist, woodworker, a suffragette and one of the founding directors of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Her late husband, Los Angeles businessman Fred W. Wood, was a founder of the L.A. Athletic Club and the Title Insurance & Trust Co., among other endeavors.
The style of the home was likely more of an aesthetic choice rather than a practical one. She had traveled in France and Belgium during World War I where she ran an orphanage along the war front. The home closely resembles those still found along both coasts of the Strait of Dover in the English Channel.
European craftsmanship and materials are used throughout. The downstairs floors are imported slate and upstairs, inlaid or framed wood. Fine woodwork includes paneling, open beams and carving, including a raised minstrel’s gallery over the living room. Attention to detail is evident in the original sconces and heat registers.
The foyer ceiling rises to more than 20 feet and leads to a curved staircase, a formal dining room and a living room with an oversized fireplace with the words “A Dieu foi aux amis foyer” (For God, faith; for friends, hospitality) carved into the mantle. Large lead-paned windows frame views of the Santa Monica Mountains.
About this house: The architect is unknown but may have been Paul Williams. It is on a list of possible Williams homes, according to his granddaughter, Karen Hudson, but some of Williams’ private records were destroyed in the L.A. riots of 1992.
Asking price: $3.8 million
Size: The 4,160-square-foot, four-bedroom, three-bathroom home sits on a 13,818-square-foot sloping lot.
Features: The sellers undertook a 14-year restoration of the property. Interior details include ribbed domed ceilings and gumwood carvings. Outside, there is a spa, an outdoor fireplace, a pizza oven, a bocce ball court, locally quarried Bouquet Canyon stone paths, ponds and a waterfall.
Where: Los Feliz
Realtor: Patricia Ruben, Sotheby’s International Realty, 1801 N. Hillhurst Ave., Los Angeles; (323) 671-2310.
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