Listed at $2M, a Hollywood Hills Midcentury Hovers in a Sycamore Canopy

A 1961 post-and-beam residence in Nichols Canyon cantilevers over the wooded hillside.

Nov 3, 2021 - 00:17

Listed at $2M, a Hollywood Hills Midcentury Hovers in a Sycamore Canopy

A 1961 post-and-beam residence in Nichols Canyon cantilevers over the wooded hillside.

"By a babbling brook in a country setting," read the 1961 newspaper ad by builder Al Herd, listing the Los Angeles house for $45,000. "2 minutes to Sunset."

Six decades later, this three-bed, two-bath house in the Nichols Canyon area of Hollywood Hills offers the same irresistible combination of location and seclusion. Its asking price of $1,999,000 is a bit more than the original sales figure, but in 1961 a soft drink also sold for five cents.

Mature sycamores stretch from the bottom of Nichols Canyon to envelop the house, filling the interior with dappled sunlight.
Virtually Here Studios

"It’s only about half a mile from Hollywood Boulevard," says broker Ryan Hanke of Figure 8 Realty, "but you feel like you’re a world away. It’s very integrated into nature. You feel like you’re right there in the branches of these giant sycamores."

A simple post-and-beam construction, the L-shaped, 1,872-square-foot house cantilevers over its hillside spot, with one whole end of the L—the living room—jutting out furthest. The mature sycamore trees come right up to the edge of the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, creating the sensation that there is no hillside at all: just a house built into the canopy.

The living room was expanded in a previous renovation, further cantilevering toward the trees.
Virtually Here Studios

"When you walk in, the foyer is pretty unassuming, and you open up to this giant living room that's surrounded by the floor-to-ceiling glass. And I think a lot of the home is similar," Hanke says, "where you’re at first in a fairly constricted space, and then it opens up wide. It’s really well laid out, because there’s always these reveals happening."