The house was designed by Lloyd Wright, old man Frank's son, whose work was in a similar idiom to his father's. The house is known as the Samuel Novarro house and is located at 5609 Valley Oak Drive in the Los Feliz neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Louis Samuel was Novarro's business manager, but had his hand in some dirty dealings and was found to be embezzling from Novarro.
Ramón took possession of the house as a rather hushed affair and got rid of Samuel. After he moved in he hired Cedric Gibbons to style the Art Deco interiors. He also asked Wright to expand the house further, as well as the gardens. He lived here until the late 1930s.
Some have attributed this landmark as the place where he was murdered by the Ferguson brothers, but that house was at 3110 Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Studio City. After his death the house in Laurel Canyon was eventually demolished and another one now stands in its place.
The Samuel Novarro house continues to inspire drivers on that serpentine stretch of road in Los Feliz, a spot that is now much more built up than it was in Novarro's time - during the eclipse of silents and the break out of sound.
4 comments:
What a pity it was destroyed. It is brilliant and way ahead of its time. Thank you for sharing this and the history lesson. Alice Ghostly springs to mind... You have such good taste.
Sorry if I was a bit obtuse in my writing Uptonking, the house still stands and was home to the likes of Diane Keaton and Christina Ricci. The Laurel Canyon house is gone. I rewrote the post for clarity!
Ohhh I can see the son kept the father's tradition.
Novarro really had awesome taste.
XOXO
Yes a very genetic distillation on LW's part, Sixpence! The height of Hollywood glamour-puss money and fame for sure :)!
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