The Garcia House, a Los Angeles home designed in the early 1960s by the famed architect John Lautner that appeared in the 1989 movie “Lethal Weapon 2,” has sold for $12.5 million, just over two months after coming on the market for $16 million.
The sellers are Hollywood couple John McIlwee and Bill Damaschke, who purchased the house from the actor Vincent Gallo for $1.2 million in 2002, property records show. Mr. McIlwee is a business manager in the entertainment industry, and Mr. Damaschke is a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer.
In an email, Mr. McIlwee declined to comment on the identity of the buyer, but said that he and Mr. Damaschke were thrilled to have “found the next custodian to carry on the John Lautner Garcia House legacy.”
“We chose to pass on other offers because we wanted someone that shared our common goal of preservation and integrity,” he said. “As for price, we feel like it was totally appropriate for the house and confirms architecture as art.”
Photos courtesy of Roger Davies
The almond-shaped house, which is elevated 60 feet off the ground on concrete caissons, looks like something straight out of “The Jetsons,” and is widely regarded as one of L.A.’s most significant Midcentury homes. When it came on the market earlier this year, architect Leo Marmol of Marmol Radziner, whose firm helped restore the house, called it “a beautifully exuberant, graceful structure.”
The house was originally built in the early 1960s for Russell Garcia, a film composer and conductor, and his wife Gina Garcia. It spans around 2,600 square feet with three bedrooms and sits on 1.2 acres overlooking a canyon. It has a large balcony. A central outdoor staircase separates the bedrooms and the living areas, which have glass walls juxtaposed with lava rock and gray terrazzo floors.
Messrs. McIlwee and Damaschke worked with Marmol Radziner on a more than $1 million renovation of the property after purchasing it. The renovation included repairing the roof and rebuilding the terrace. They also dusted off Mr. Lautner’s old plans for an ellipse-shaped pool that no previous owners had built.
View Listing | Buyer Represented by Nichole Shanfeld
Story courtesy of Wall Street Journal
