191 South Hudson Avenue, Hancock Park
The Smith House is among the few intact Art Deco residences left in Los Angeles, an architectural specimen of the late 1920s preserved down to the wrought-iron gate, the stained-glass medallions, and the stainless steel bar. It is a singular survivor, ready for its next century.
Sixty-nine photographs in the full set. Reach out to view the catalog.
"Built in the year of the crash, kept whole through every decade since. The bar, the stained glass, the staircase. All original. All still working."
The Smith House was completed in 1929 at the absolute crest of American Art Deco, just as Hollywood was becoming Hollywood and a new architectural language was being invented to match. Its stepped white-stucco massing is a textbook example of the period, a gentle ziggurat sitting back from Hudson Avenue behind a wrought-iron gate of original design.
Inside, the discipline holds. Oak flooring runs the length of the ground floor. A sweeping staircase climbs past two stories of original ironwork, swag-and-medallion plaster ornament, and a pair of stained-glass panels depicting stylized sunbursts in green, amber, and lapis. The living room centers on a carved white marble fireplace that still draws.
The kitchen is a custom St. Charles installation in chrome and white. Beyond it, an entertainment room has been used by three generations of Angelenos, anchored by a seventeen-foot stainless steel bar that would not be out of place in a Wilshire hotel of 1934. Five bedrooms upstairs share oak floors, original mosaic-tile baths, and quiet garden views.
The grounds are 19,948 square feet of meticulously kept gardens, mature trees, and lawn enough for a long table set for forty. The four-car garage, the basement, the pantry, the laundry, the den. Everything you would ask of a primary residence in this neighborhood, in working order, with the unmatched provenance of an original.
A study in late-period Art Deco. Stepped vertical massing, a low parapet that hides a flat roof, and a stucco facade detailed with the subtle scoring you only see on the originals. The pages of architectural history this house belongs to are not being written anymore.
Two stories of hand-forged ironwork in a graceful ogee curl. A green-toned runner. A crystal chandelier hung from a coffered double-height ceiling. Every detail is original to the house and has never required restoration.
The signature room. A full stainless steel bar with chrome rail, mirrored back wall, and a drop-down projection screen. Built in 1929 to serve a small ballroom, intact since. There is nothing else like it in a private home in Los Angeles.
Custom St. Charles cabinetry in chrome and white, a marble pastry counter, a butler's pantry to the dining room, and the kind of working layout that the period understood: a kitchen for staff, designed for a household that entertained at the scale this one was built for.
19,948 square feet of garden in the heart of Hancock Park: lawn, mature pines, hedge-bordered borders of marigold and rose, a private gated motor court, a four-car garage, and quiet enough that you forget Wilshire is two blocks away.
A working number, not a quote. Adjust the down payment, the rate, and the term. We will walk through the actual financing with you on the tour.
Principal and interest only. Property tax, insurance, and HOA are not included.
South Hudson Avenue runs the spine of Hancock Park, a tree-lined neighborhood of architect-built homes from the 1920s with the deepest setbacks and the largest lots in central Los Angeles.
Two blocks to Larchmont Boulevard for groceries and coffee. Five minutes to the Wilshire Country Club. Eight to LACMA, the new Academy Museum, and the Petersen. Twenty to the studios on either side, depending on traffic. Quiet enough that the loudest sound in the garden is the wind through the cypress.
Tours are by appointment. Tell us when you would like to come, and we will arrange the rest.
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