Frank Lloyd Wright Gem in the Hollywood Hills Lists for $4.2 Million

The Freeman House in Hollywood. Photo: Deasy Penner Podley

One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most influential Los Angeles projects, the show-stopping Freeman House, has hit the market for $4.25 million with boutique brokerage firm Deasy Penner Podley. Sheathed in more than 12,000 cast-concrete blocks adorned with Mayan-esque motifs, the Hollywood Hills residence was conceived in 1925 following the construction of the nearby Hollyhock House, which inspired the original owners—Samuel and Harriet Freeman—to commission the architect. The building is even described by noted architectural historian Kathryn Smith as the “missing link” between two Wright-designed World Heritage sites: Taliesin and Fallingwater.

The seller of the 2,900-square-foot property is the University of Southern California, which was gifted the estate in 1985 by the Freemans, who for decades used it as a sort of cultural salon, with reported guests including Clark Gable, Richard Neutra, Martha Graham, and Jean Negulesco. 

While USC did pour over $1 million into the renovation of the National Register–listed home following the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, the two-bedroom dwelling is described on its website as “awaiting restoration.” Enticingly, however, the property comes with built-in furnishings designed by another famed architect, Rudolph Schindler, plus other architectural upgrades have been made by John Lautner, Gregory Ain, and Robert Clark.