Transforming a Hollywood penthouse into sanctuary with second-hand gems

Caitlin Villarreal felt giddy the first time she stepped inside the Whitley Heights rental, a storied 1926 Mediterranean-style penthouse with towering ceilings, hand-carved wooden beams and a pair of arched bookcases alongside an oversize fireplace.

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“It had good energy,” Villarreal said of the 1,500-square-foot apartment she rents for $5,300 a month in a historic neighbourhood where Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin and Bette Davis once lived. “It’s iconic just by standing tall year after year. It has floor-to-ceiling “Old Hollywood” windows that blow open unexpectedly just like in the movies. It doesn't feel like a rental. It feels like a forever home.”

Even after three days spent cleaning up ash and soot following the devastating Los Angeles fires in January, Villarreal said she was the happiest she'd been in years. “That's the magic of this home,” she said as her 2-year-old British shorthair cat, Zuse, curled up elegantly on a velvet chair she purchased at the Gramercy Park Hotel liquidation sale.

After 20 years in New York and five in Weston, Conn., Villarreal, who grew up in Granada Hills and attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, is thrilled to be home in what she calls her divorcee’s oasis. “The past three tenants, myself included, were all going through a divorce,” she said.

And despite going through difficult changes in her personal life, she feels an effervescent glee at finding the perfect place to land. “This neighborhood is everything I didn’t know LA could be,” she said of Whitley Heights, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. “Walkable, warm, social, soulful like a raven who tolerates crows, decadent and shockingly green and luscious.” It’s also within walking distance of one of LA’s most iconic landmarks. “I just purchased season tickets to the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl,” she said with excitement.