The Iconic Lovell Beach House Hits the Market for $18.8 Million
Built by R.M. Schindler 100 years ago, the Newport Beach landmark, which also features Richard Neutra’s landscape plans, was designed to inspire healthy living
One century after R.M. Schindler completed the Lovell Beach House for naturopathic health advocate and Los Angeles Times columnist Philip Lovell and his educator wife, Leah, the landmark property has come to market. Kept in the family since completion, the home, which also features landscape plans by Richard Neutra, is widely regarded as one of Schindler’s most important projects due to its unique structure and design.
The Lovells strongly believed in architecture that promotes healthy living. As such, Schindler, who met the couple through his wife, Pauline, designed the home with open-air sleeping porches, rooftop sunbathing terraces, an abundance of natural light, and a uniquely large shower with five shower heads so that bathers could lie beneath running water. While some of these designs later required modification—such as closing the porches due to the Newport Beach fog—the family has been careful to keep original elements, including a built-in sofa and shelving, intact.
The couple commissioned a second home from Richard Neutra in Los Angeles in 1929 called the Lovell Health House, and while it’s also a celebrated property, the family is quoted as having a preference for the Newport Beach location. “It just fitted us,” Leah Lovell told architectural historian Esther McCoy. Philip Lovell also stated the Los Angeles home felt like a public museum.
Although Philip Lovell died in 1997, the beach house remained a central gathering place for the family in the decades that followed. The couple’s youngest son had acquired the property in the 1970s, but Barbara lived at the home until she died in 2025.
Co-listed with Todd Bousman of Bouhaus Properties and Nate Cole of Modern California House, the home has long served as inspiration for architectural aficionados, particularly because of its expansive ocean views due to five monumental reinforced-concrete frames shaped like squared figure eights, which also places the living room high above the boardwalk for privacy.
The house is listed with an asking price of $18.8 million and comprises four bedrooms and four baths across 2,741 square feet.