7661 Curson Terrace, Los Angeles, CA 90046
7661 Curson Terrace
Los Angeles 90046
The Hollywood Hills House designed by Scott Mitchell Studio is a monumental and versatile modern villa rising out of the Hollywood Hills. The layered and terraced house - designed for living and entertaining - embraces views that span L.A.’s cityscape from east to west and out to the Pacific Ocean.
This property is set on Los Angeles’s most iconic promontory that extends over one acre with no neighbors on either side and 270° views of the entire city. Set at the 50-yard line of legendary hot spots Chateau Marmont, Tower Bar, and the Hollywood Bowl, the energy of the city can be seen and felt from the estate’s peaceful privacy. Additionally, the property borders state land so no building can be constructed behind it, and it has private access to hiking in the famous Runyon Canyon.
The form of the house follows a rigorous commitment to rich, organic materials and light. Grand outdoor decks provide seamless indoor and outdoor living. With expansive volumes over three floors, the tranquil and rooted hillside haven exudes a sense of balance, repose and a seamless connection to the natural landscape.
Scott Mitchell Studio’s refined use of monolithic board-formed concrete, which has influenced a generation of architects in Southern California and beyond, along with glass and steel curtain walls and cantilevered wood roof planes, are central to the design, anchoring the house into the earth. Wood and natural materials, such as vertical grain white oak, Indiana limestone and a muted color palette add warmth.
Designed for a multitude of uses, the house is both intimate and open with dedicated spaces for living, dining, reading, working, exercising and entertaining. Centered around a stairwell that ascends through three floors and is bathed in sunlight from a wall-to-wall skylight, are four bedrooms, two studies, the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, pool bar and lounge, gym, state of the art screening room, billiards room and bar, and staff quarters. Outside the infinity pool, which appears to float on the horizon, is surrounded by dining and lounge areas with sunken seating and fire pits, and a series of outdoor rooms.
A secluded driveway inclines to an impressive, cobbled motor court that can accommodate 12 or more cars and is nestled under the house with far-reaching views across the city. From there the villa’s grand and wide staircase begins, following the form of the building, passing a large-scale, vertical water feature to the landscaped north terrace and walkway, where native plantings and open fires frame the principal steel window and door entry system.
On entering, to the east is a luxurious study and to the west, an open living room with fireplace and views across the city that flows into the dining room and on to the kitchen and family room, where floor to ceiling glass sliding doors open seamlessly connecting indoor and outdoor and framing wide urban vistas.
On the exterior, wire-brushed narrow Itauba deck boards and an elegant dark stone clad infinity pool and hot tub are flanked by a sunken fire pit and seating area. A stand-alone pool bar and lounge is connected by a covered breezeway adjacent to an outdoor seating area. Walkways and terraces continue around the house incorporating native oaks and under-storied plantings that are composed with elements of fire and water.
On the upper level, the primary bedroom wing comprises not only the primary bedroom but separate bathrooms and dressing rooms, and a study that can be isolated from the rest of the suite by a discreet pocket door system.
On the lower level is a recreational zone with state-of-the-art screening room, billiards room with lounge area, and a bar. These program elements are organized around a gracious distribution foyer which doubles as a secondary point of entry to the house and leads to the motor court, which can be converted into a conditioned, modern ballroom.
The house was built over a 10-year period, and new codes have been created since its construction, preventing a home of this type ever being built again in the Hollywood Hills. The house is constructed with $30 million of solid poured-in-place board-formed concrete with three feet thick concrete walls, and over 100 caissons that go 100 feet deep. The hard cost of the construction is $3,500 a square foot not including the land. The project engaged JRC Group, Inc., arguably the best builder in the city. The house includes a multi-million-dollar Jada steel door package, custom millwork, and audio/visual.
While heroic in scale, The Hollywood Hills House embraces humanistic elements of warmth and intimacy, while attempting to nestle in a balanced and harmonious way with its natural surroundings.
Scott Mitchell Studio is renowned for its warm approach to connecting the built and natural environment and a humanistic approach to architecture. The studio’s practice spans residential and hospitality projects from coastal sanctuaries to modern villas and country farms to oceanside culinary destinations. Among the studio’s global portfolio of more that 50 projects are single family homes in North America and Australia, hospitality projects in the Caribbean, a multi-family project in Portugal, and a private museum in Italy.
Scott Mitchell Studio is the architectural designer behind the monumental 15,000 square foot Malibu house that became the backdrop for Tom Ford’s Oscar-nominated Nocturnal Animals. The house was described by Architectural Digest as “a masterful composition of intersecting planes and volumes, the structure marries the gravitas of concrete piers and walls with the lightness of glass.” Scott Mitchell Studio is also the designer of Nobu Malibu, for which it received an AIA Restaurant Design Award. The studio’s houses have been cited in Wallpaper* Magazine as “modernist inspired residential gems” and its work described as “effortlessly balancing airy, geometric, contemporary architecture and comforting, subtle luxury.”
