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The original owner, John Sowden, was a painter and photographer who hired his friend, Lloyd Wright (eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright), to build their home in Los Feliz. The house has been recognized as one of Lloyd Wright's most important works and a landmark in the Los Angeles area for its imposing Mayan-style front facade and temple-like features. When Lloyd Wright died in 1978, the Los Angeles Times wrote that Sowden house had been "hailed as the apogee of his residential work." However, it’s important to note that the claims made by Steve Hodel are highly controversial and have been met with skepticism from other investigators and experts.
Architecture and design
Perched on a small hill off Los Feliz Boulevard and strategically obscured behind a blanket of well-manicured vegetation, the John Sowden House has always been shrouded in mystery. Rising into the sky like a Mayan ruin dreamt into creation by some forgotten nightmare, the Sowden House has never been without its own lore. Built for local artist; John Sowden in 1926 by Lloyd Wright (son of famed architect, Frank Lloyd Wright), it gained national infamy in the late 1940s as the home of Dr. George Hodel who would become the main suspect in the Back Dahlia murder of 1947. Conjecture aside, what is certain is that the haunting architecture will forever sear itself into your memory given the chance to see it for yourself. Wright — son of prolific architect Frank Lloyd Wright — built the home in 1927 using concrete textile blocks that showcase decorative Mayan themes. The house hovers above Franklin Avenue, entering through copper gates to a dramatic tomb-like staircase.
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Half a century after it served as George Hodel’s house, designer Xorin Balbes purchased the property in 2001 for $1.2 million, then invested an additional $1.6 million to restore and upgrade it. According to Atlas Obscura, Balbes restored the stonework, converted the three-room kitchen into one, installed a pool and spa in the central courtyard, and added new upscale bathrooms. Despite being a professional feat for Wright Jr., the house wasn't the Sowden's home for long. Most sources report that the family left because the Mayan Revival style got too much criticism, but perhaps it was for more personal reasons. According to census records, John and Ruth were divorced by 1930, and Ruth married her second husband, David Barnett in the Sowden House, where they lived until 1936 when they sold the home to a real estate developer named Milton Blazier.
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Both Wright and his father were known to take inspiration from Mayan architecture regularly. They both designed numerous homes using the same textile block method, like the Henry Bollman Residence, the Hollyhock House, and Storer Residence. During my time in the Happy Village, I lived less than a block away from the Sowden House without ever realizing it was there.
The Mazur family lived in the home until they either rented it out or let it sit empty between the 1960s and the 1980s, when one of Dr. Mazur's children moved in. For years, neighborhood residents reported that the Sowden House looked like it had fallen into disrepair, and even appeared to be abandoned. Dr. Hodel's reputation was enough to lend the Sowden House an air of notoriety and accusations of hauntings. Dr. Hodel also ran a medical practice on First Street in Downtown L.A., about a mile away from The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, which is believed to be one of the last places Short was seen alive before her brutal murder a week later in January of 1947. The full story of the Sowden House is featured in season 3 of House Beautiful's haunted house podcast, Dark House.
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The Sowdens bought a large lot on the western edge of Los Feliz, which was home to many then-leading actors and entertainment moguls, as well as the storybook-style homes that inspired most of Walt Disney's fairytale creations. It was the perfect backdrop for Wright Jr. to design and build the 5,600 square foot, 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom structure, which is made of reinforced concrete and stucco over a wood frame. After only living in the house for four years, Sowden sold the home to Ruth Rand Barnett in 1930. From 1945 to 1950, Dr. George Hodel owned the house and allegedly committed a number of gruesome crimes at the residence, including the infamous Black Dahlia murder that went on to be one of the most heinous unsolved mysteries in history.
The John Sowden House – The Mystery Of The Black Dahlia!
There are even suspicions that the house might hold the key to the notoriously unsolved “Black Dahlia” murder case of 1947. Designed in 1926 by renowned architect, Lloyd Wright, the Sowden House is a meticulously renovated 6,000 square-foot neo-Mayan mansion in the heart of modern Hollywood. The house is rectangular in shape, with four connected wings looking in on an enclosed central courtyard. Designers Frank Slesinski and Serena Brosio collaborated on the charming living room in the Gatehouse.
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The landmark mansion was built in 1902 by architect Joseph J. Blick for Gertrude Potter Daniels, who paid $15,000 for the shingle-style home. In 1905, Susanna Bransford Emery-Holmes—known as the Silver Queen thanks to the source of her late husband’s fortune—purchased the home and soon made it her own. In 1922, she spent $37,000 to have the Postle Company of Los Angeles, who also built the Pasadena Playhouse, remodel it into an English Tudor Revival–style mansion, giving it the regal exterior that remains today. As the Pasadena Showcase House of Design enters its 59th year, it’s returning to a familiar setting.
Sowden House: 'Black Dahlia' Estate Hits Market for $4.8M - Haute Residence
Sowden House: 'Black Dahlia' Estate Hits Market for $4.8M.
Posted: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Among the homes for rent los angeles has to offer, the Jaw House may be one of the most fascinating ones. The captivating yet frightening front entrance reminds many of the mouth of a shark, which is where the nickname Jaw House comes from. The sand-colored zigzagging blocks of pre-cast concrete create the iconic and jaw-like entrance look is based on the ancient Mayan Revival style.
Franklin Avenue is one of the busiest stretches of road cutting through the tranquil neighborhood of Los Feliz. It serves as an east-west thoroughfare to Hollywood, keeping traffic predictably steady despite mostly bisecting residential areas. Yet, one home is instantly distinguished by its dark sense of mystery and striking design. Between the corners where Normandie and Winona connect with Franklin, you’ll find the Sowden House. The cave-like atmosphere continues inside, where stone fireplaces anchor living spaces lined with warm wood floors.
As one of the country’s oldest house and garden tours, the Pasadena Showcase House of Design benefits the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, an all-volunteer organization that contributes to arts and music nonprofits in Southern California. The event draws more than 25,000 guests each year and offers several dining spaces, including Roe Japanese Fusion, the Tudor Rose Bistro, and Wattle & Daub Tavern. The Shops at the Showcase offer an array of merchants, from handmade jewelry to artisanal chocolates, and are also home to the Shops’s Wine & Cheese Bar.
On one side, the Glass House, transparent and entirely self-possessed, a work of modernist daring framed in steel and inspired, as Johnson was only too happy to admit, by the designs of his hero, the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. On the other, the Brick House, sometimes called the Guest House, hiding behind its inscrutable exterior the bedroom Johnson called his “sex room,” as well as the mechanical equipment serving its more glamorous relative 105 feet away. A palette of whites, deep blues, and gold creates an elegant atmosphere in the formal living room, which was designed by Rachel Duarte.
The house transferred ownership for years, until 2001 when designer Xorin Balbes purchased the home for $1.2 million. I Am the Night, inspired by true events and the memoir One Day She’ll Darken, tells the story of Fauna Hodel, a teenage girl who travels to late-1940s Los Angeles to search for someone in her past. Chris Pine plays a reporter who helps Hodel in her treacherous journey into Hollywood’s dark underbelly. Its planned restoration, to address longstanding leaks and water damage, languished even as other structures by Johnson on the rolling 49-acre campus, including the 1970 Sculpture Gallery, got their own updates. In its middle age as in its youth, the Brick House stood mutely by, its feet brushed by a spotlight on the Glass House that never fully turned its way.
Intricate copper gates bar the entry which then leads upward through a dark, cavernous stairway into the home. Adopting a rectangular structure, the rooms circle the aforementioned courtyard. Arguably the most renovated area, the courtyard is almost unrecognizable from its original design today. At one time, the courtyard was home to both a pool measuring 32-feet long as well as a decorative fountain. IIt once featured a pair of concrete block water organs but an earthquake leveled them.
Growing up in that house, my brothers and I saw it as a place of magic that we were convinced could easily have greeted the uninvited with pits of fire, poison darts, deadly snakes, or even a giant sword-bearing turbaned bodyguard at the door. During the 1920s, Los Feliz was a flower-filled enclave of silent movie stars and middle-class professionals. Retired artist John Sowden and his wife Ruth commissioned Lloyd to design a unique showplace where they could throw parties and put on amateur theatrics. Most recently, the Sowden House was sold in 2018 for $4.7 million to a man named Dan Goldfarb who owns a lucrative business making cannabis-infused products for pets. He also has big plans for the property – including creating a “cannabis oasis” in the home and using it to host lavish company events.
Native California wildflowers accent the Arroyo Vista Garden, which was designed with fire safety in mind. Landscape architect Elisa Read Pappaterra filled the center fountain with cascading succulents. A brick-walled patio became a party-ready outdoor kitchen and dining area thanks to Douglas R. Santicola of Outdoor Elegance. Santicola and Monique Wood installed Caesarstone countertops fabricated by Carlito’s Way Stone to create a functional space for outdoor entertaining. Designer Ashleigh Miranda focused on juxtaposing technology and earthy elements in her moody media room.
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