It is the house that won new respect for factory-built prefab housing: Leo Marmol's sleek, solar-powered, steel-and-glass Desert House in Desert Hot Springs, Calif. It has been Marmol's weekend house since he built it in 2005, but it is now listed for sale for $1.85 million. The buyer will have a unique home that has been widely praised for its blending of mid-century modern design with...

Starchitecture for a Song Written by Peter Viles A Frank Lloyd Wright for under a million dollars? Yes as long as you're flexible about location.Emotionally battered by the Los Angeles real estate market, where first-time buyers still fight over small tract homes priced at $750,000, Kali Nikitas and her husband all but gave up on homeownership this summer. "The prices of L.A. real estate were...

By Hunter Drohojowska-Philp Never mind the Jean Prouve tables and Damien Hirst butterfly paintings. To really be of the moment, why not collect a John Lautner motel in Desert Hot Springs? That is the thinking behind architectureForSale.com, a website offering quality works of architecture on a national and international basis. Real estate websites are a dime a dozen, but AFS, as it is called, comes with...

Listings: The Hong Residence, Los Feliz If there is a real estate bubble, and it is popping, well, that's going to be a somewhat depressing story to read about every day. And LA Land does not want to be completely depressing, so we mix in items like this one -- our attempt to celebrate the vibrancy of Los Angeles residential architecture and style. The Hong Residence, built in 1968 at 5146 Los...

Houses Today Iconic Homes Clients such as film producer Joel Silver are a firm favourite with realtor Crosby Doe. In 1985, Silver, one of the makers of "Matrix", purchased the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Storer House. He then had the property restored at great expense, and generated a great deal of publicity too: "Joel had so many house parties with so many well-known actors that the house became as...

Written by Hiroyuki Kushida Crosby Doe — A realtor who knows everything about and deals only in modern vintage homes. Over the past few years, we've introduced you to several modern vintage homes for sale in this magazine. All of them are masterpieces that make people that are into this kind of thing drool. So when it comes to this kind of property, I went to visit the only real estate agency you...

Home of the Week: A piece of L.A. history Lloyd Wright design was preserved by the tuneful Newman family. By Ruth Ryon, Times Staff Writer The Alfred Newman musical clan gathered the other day to say their goodbyes to a Pacific Palisades home that has played host to many musicians since it was built in 1948. The house, designed by architect Lloyd Wright (son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright), was the...

Architectural Diamonds Unique homes command premium - if you can make the case. Written by Robert Freeman It's not every market that boasts for-sale homes by architecture luminaries such as Frank Lloyd Wright or Frank Gehry. But in Beverly Hills and parts of Los Angeles, homes by Wright and other architects of national reputation aren't uncommon. And when these homes go on the market, it's often...

Case Study, in duplicate Rodney Walker's landmark House 16 helped to define modern living but then was demolished. Now his sons have brought it back -- twice. Written by Bettijane Levine, Times Staff Writer CRAIG and Bruce Walker live 20 miles apart but awake each morning in nearly identical new hilltop homes, post-and-beam structures with open floor plans and walls of glass. To them, the twin...

Realtor Check International Design Interiors Lifestyle A response to the rising demand of young modernist, architecturally minded real estate agencies are taking off around the world. Nowhere has the cult of mid-century taking hold as strongly as it has in LA and, according to the experts, interest in signature modernist properties has reached intense new heights, with many selling for between 5 and 20...