When Sunset's Not Selling

With its power creatives on strike, a hefty new mansion tax, and insurers fleeing, LA's fanciest properties are at a standstill

- By Emily Jane Fox

SOMETIME LAST APRIL, a steady stream of golf carts began carrying real estate brokers and potential buyers, social media influencers and those who accompany them, and nosy neighbors just in it for the mental math up the endless driveway to the storied home at the base of a Hollywood hill. The house, 11,000 square feet on more than an acre, is objectively a stunner, a piece of Los Angeles design history that keeps the town from descending into the land of modern white-box bachelor pads that Selling Sunset would have you believe it is. Built in the 1920s, it’s all original painted wood ceilings, has a screening room modeled after Grauman’s Egyptian and Chinese Theatres, tiles and floors flown in from Italian and French villas, a koi pond, and a loggia bar inspired by the one at Musso & Frank. When the latest owner, a television writer, was ready to give it up, the real estate agent sprinkled fairy dust: The home was given a “name” with which to market it, its very own website, and a $15.5 million price tag. They parked a vintage Mercedes out front. A jazz band greeted the golf cart passengers. Champagne was passed.