The four houses were designed by noted architects Arthur and Nina Zwebell, who are responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous courtyard apartments. The Witch’s House even appeared in a fair number of movies, starting from the silent era Hansel and Gretel (1923) to Clueless (1995).Ĭharlie Chaplin Bungalows: These cluster of cottages on North Formosa Avenue were built by Charlie Chaplin in 1923 to provide accommodation to his cast and crew working at his studio a couple of blocks away on La Brea Avenue. The house’s wacky architecture made it a popular landmark in Beverly Hills, and inspired others to create more such storybook houses. The house was given an intentionally dilapidated look with a distressed paint job and overgrown English-style garden and a moat-like pond. When the studio shut down, producer Ward Lascelle, spared it from demolition and moved it to Walden Drive in Beverly Hills in 1926, where it now serves as a personal residence. It originally stood in Culver City, California.

The Witch’s House, also known as the Spadena House, after its first owner, was designed to function as the office and dressing rooms for Willat Studios back in 1920.

The Witch’s House house in Walden drive was one of his first creation, and it remains one of best examples of this particular style. These are houses that embody the utmost joy in creation.”Ī pioneer of this peculiar architectural style was Hollywood art director Harry Oliver. “Three attributes set classic Storybook style homes apart from other Period Revival styles of the 1920s,” writes Arrol Gellner, the author of Storybook Style: America’s Whimsical Homes of the 1920s, “their exaggeratedly plastic and often cartoonish interpretation of medieval forms their use of artificial means to suggest great age and third, that all but indefinable quality known as whimsy. This playful architectural style characterized by elements like crooked roofs, rolled or pointed eaves, mismatched doors and windows, and an overall look of disrepair, became a rage in Los Angles during the 1920s and 30s, with the rise of the Hollywood film industry and a widespread fascination with medieval architecture. Photo: Lori Branham/FlickrĪ very popular landmark of Walden Drive, the Witch’s House is one of many whimsical storybook houses scattered across Lon Angles. But the interior is quite charming and spacious with two master suites and a 3,500-square-foot floor plan.

With its steeply pitched gable roof, wooden shingles, shutters that hang askew and small leaded-glass windows, the house appears jarringly out of place among its upscale neighbors. At the intersection of Carmelita Avenue and Walden Drive, in Beverly Hills, California, there stands a house which appears straight out of a fairytale.

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