From pioneering architectural marvels and celebrity mansions to notorious party houses and the secret spots that appear in some of Hollywood’s most famous films, these spectacular Los Angeles houses each have a fascinating secret history.

Built in 1922, the Schindler House is a famous architectural and social experiment. Designed by architect Rudolph M. Schindler, it expressed a dream he shared with his wife Pauline: to create a harmonious space for communal living. The couple shared the house with friends Clyde and Marian Chase but what made the set-up unique was the lack of conventional spaces. The house has no living room, dining room or bedrooms. 

Instead of conventional living spaces, there were four studios, one for each person to “express his or her individuality,” along with two communal patios in the garden, a shared kitchen, and outdoor sleeping quarters located on the flat roof. Inspired by a campsite in Yosemite National Park, the 3,500-square-feet house also includes a guest apartment with its own kitchen and bathroom.

Concrete walls and sliding glass panels give the minimalist interior a slightly Japanese feel and the open floor plan was intended to integrate the house with the natural environment. An experiment in modernity and cooperative living, the house’s seminal design had a huge impact on Southern Californian architecture. Each studio space connected directly to the gardens, a concept that inspired the perennially popular Ranch Style home.

Now open to the public as the headquarters of MAK Center for Art and Architecture, the house hosted many famous faces over the years, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Weston, John Cage, John Bovingdon, Sadakichi Hartmann and Galka Scheyer. Architect Richard Neutra, a friend and rival of Schindler’s, lived in the Chase apartment with his wife and son between 1925 and 1930, helping to cement the house’s iconic status.

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1923 for Charles and Mabel Ennis, and built by his son Lloyd in 1924, the Ennis House is an iconic Los Angeles landmark. The unusual house was inspired by Maya temples and built using 27,000 perforated decomposed granite blocks, each bearing a pattern inspired by the symmetrical reliefs found in the Puuc architecture of Uxmal, located in present-day Mexico.

Now a designated national landmark, the house was owned by billionaire Ronald Burkle from 2011 to 2019, when it sold for $18 million (£13.7m) to Robert Rosenheck and Cindy Capobianco, who work in America’s lucrative cannabis industry. It has made over 80 on-screen appearances, serving as a shooting location for films including Blade Runner and Rush Hour and TV series including Twin Peaks, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Westworld. 

The 6,000-square-foot property consists of two buildings, the main house and a small chauffer’s apartment and garage. A paved courtyard separates the two. The house includes three bedrooms, a kitchen, pantry, dining room, living room, and several terraces. After media personality John Nesbitt purchased the house in 1940, Wright added a billiard room and a pool on the north terrace, as well as a heating system.

The house has long suffered from structural instability and the 1994 Northridge earthquake caused significant damage. In 2005, it was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of Most Endangered Historic Places. A federal grant facilitated major restoration work, which was completed in 2007 at a cost of almost $6.4 million (£4.9m). Currently a private residence, it opens to the public just 12 days a year.

The sprawling property, also known as the Hearst estate, made headlines when it sold last year for $63.1 million (£48.2m), after a staggering $148 million (£113m) price cut. Despite the slashed price, it was one of the 10 most expensive homes sold in Los Angeles during the pandemic, with real estate prices at an all-time high. But there is more of note about this property than its record-setting sale price... 

Built in 1926 for banker Milton Getz, the Beverly Hills estate was purchased by publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst and Hollywood star Marion Davies. It has played host to plenty of famous faces over the years, from John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, who honeymooned at the lavish mansion, to Beyoncé, who featured it in Black is King. 

The illustrious estate was also the location for an iconic scene in The Godfather in which Jack Woltz (John Marley) pays the price for denying Don Vito's request. He awakes to find the severed head of his beloved thoroughbred horse beneath his bedsheets. Fans will recall Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), consigliere to the Corleone family, receiving a tour of the elaborate grounds prior to the gruesome incident.

The opulent 29,000-square-foot property includes nine bedrooms and 15 bathrooms, as well as a two-storey library with carved wooden panelling and hand-painted ceilings. Its dramatic arched window looks out over the grounds, which span three-and-a-half acres and include two detached apartments, a pool house, a tennis pavilion, a five-bedroom gatehouse, and an Olympic-sized pool. The landscaped garden features terraces to enjoy the Californian sunshine, as well as lawns and waterfalls.

Built with entertaining in mind, the Mediterranean Revival-style mansion also features a spectacular Art Deco nightclub, two screening rooms and event areas that can host up to 1,000 guests. The mirrored bar in the club, which was originally installed in Hugh Hefner’s nightclub Touch, injects a slice of Las Vegas history into the Beverly Hills home.

Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy magazine, lived at the infamous Playboy Mansion from 1974 until his death in 2017. The 21,987-square-foot mansion was built in 1927 by Arthur Rolland Kelly in a Gothic Tudor-revival style. It features 29 rooms, including a screening room with an organ, a hidden Prohibition-era wine cellar and an “Elvis Room”, where the singer is rumoured to have spent a night with eight Playboy bunnies.

Notorious for its lavish parties, attended by celebrities and socialites, the mansion had some unusual licences. As well as a year-round fireworks permit, Hefner was one of very few LA residents to have a zoo license, keeping dozens of exotic birds and animals. The grounds also contain a tennis court, a waterfall and a koi pond fed by an artificial stream, as well as a pet cemetery.

Perhaps the most famous area of the Playboy Mansion is the grotto, a swimming pool and hot tub area partially enclosed in a manmade cave. After one fundraising party in 2011, 23 guests fell ill. Epidemiologists from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health later traced the outbreak of sickness to a hot tub containing bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.

Hefner paid $1.1 million (£844k) for the property in 1974. In 2016, he sold it to its current owner Daren Metropoulos for $100 million (£77m) . Hefner continued to live at the mansion until his death the following year. In 2018, Metropoulos entered into an agreement with the City of Los Angeles to permanently protect the mansion from demolition, promising to restore the run-down property to its 'original grandeur'.

It may be officially known as the Eva Gabor Estate, but this iconic residence has housed a spectacular array of Old Hollywood stars over the years. Built by trailblazing black architect Paul Williams in 1938 for the then-head of Columbia Pictures, its legendary occupants include Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow, David Niven, and Audrey Hepburn, who lived there with her husband Mel Ferrer before Gabor purchased the estate in the 1970s. 

The elegant Colonial-revival home, steeped in silver-screen history, last sold in 2019 for $11 million (£8.4m). The spacious two-storey, white-brick house boasts six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, living and family rooms with fireplaces, a formal dining room, kitchen, library and office, as well as a bar. The 1.1-acre landscaped grounds hold a large swimming pool and pool house, sauna, tennis court, generous expanse of lawn and a greenhouse.

The drama of the house is well-suited to Hollywood royalty with its Southern-style columns, spectacular sweeping spiral staircase, and mirrors dotted all over the property. Gabor, a Hungarian-American actress who lived in the house for nearly two decades until her death in 1995, is said to have installed the mirrors also she could regularly admire her own beauty. 

The house also includes three dining areas and a gourmet kitchen that was particularly beloved by Hepburn. The star, whose love of food was documented in Audrey at Home, a book written by her son, enjoyed cooking elaborate meals. This living room, with its built-in bookshelves, raises images of the actress acting out a real-life scene from the 1957 film Funny Face, in which she works at a bookshop. 

Built in 1949, the Eames House – also known as Case Study House No. 8 – is a uniquely beautiful example of mid-20th century modern architecture. Designed and constructed by husband and wife design duo, Charles and Ray Eames, the glass-and-steel property consists of two rectangular boxes that served as their home and studio. The legendary couple lived and worked here for almost 40 years, until Ray died in 1988, ten years to the day after her husband. 

The house has a stunning façade made from panels of clear and coloured glass. Nestled into the hillside, it was designed to enter into a relationship with its surroundings and achieve harmony with nature, despite the starkness of its materials. The experience of living there is shaped by everything from the moving shadows of the eucalyptus trees outside, to the sound of birds.

The Eames' filled the space between the two structures with pots of red, white, and pink tea roses. House plants, including ficus trees and African violets, helped to blur the line between indoor and outdoor. The house is now a museum, open to the public for guided visits, and these colourful pots can still be found lining the walkways and dotting the courtyard.

Both the studio and house are double height to include mezzanine balconies that overlook large central rooms. Inside, the Eames House is largely untouched and includes prototypes of their iconic furniture designs, gifts from friends and beloved objects, books, fabrics, folk art and shells. The warmth and clutter belie the simplicity of the exterior, transforming an architectural experiment into a welcoming, characterful home.

Once described by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as 'the most modern home built in the world', the Chemosphere is an iconic Los Angeles house designed by architect John Lautner in 1960. Perched atop a five-foot-wide concrete column nearly 30 feet tall, the house was initially considered to be impossible to build. Decades later, it has survived multiple earthquakes thanks an ingenious spherical concrete pedestal at the base.

The unique octagonal house is reminiscent of a carton spaceship – fitting, given that the 2,200-square-foot property was originally designed for a young aerospace engineer named Leonard Malin. With only $30,000 (£22.9k) to spare, he convinced a gas company and a chemical company to front most of the money for the experimental house, which cost $140,000 (£107k) to build – equivalent to $1.2 million (£916k) in 2020.

The distinctive interiors were originally designed by John H. Smith, the first African American to be admitted to the National Society of Interior Designers. The house is bisected by an exposed brick wall with a fireplace and has stylish minimalist seating in the middle. It has served as a futuristic shooting location for films including Body Double and Tomorrowland and directly inspired a house featured in Charlie’s Angels. 

Along with colourful interiors, the house has a somewhat colourful history. One of its former owners, Dr. Richard Kuhn, was murdered at the property in 1976. Irresponsible tenants subsequently damaged the house when it was rented out as a party location in the 1980s. But it was purchased for $1 million (£763k) in 1998, by publisher Benedikt Taschen, who restored it and has laid its dark past to rest.

It may not be steeped in Old Hollywood glamour, but this Bel Air mansion has certainly earned its spot in the Los Angeles properties Hall of Fame. Built in 1971 for basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, this 11,400-square-foot bachelor pad was the site of many a raucous party, if some of the wild claims made in his 1991 book A View from Above are to be believed.

The lavish mansion, which was built by architect David Rich in a Brutalist style inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, has six bedrooms and eight bathrooms. Known as Ursa Major – a Latin term inspired by Chamberlain’s nickname, the Big Dipper – the property originally included custom amenities such as a mirrored, retractable ceiling in the master bedroom, a playroom with a waterbed and a swimming pool that extended into the living room.

The enrormous house has since been dramatically updated and now boasts a plethora of modern amenities. It was purchased in 2008 for $6.55 million (£5m) by Dmitri Novikov, who added an outdoor kitchen, guest suites, offices, a media room, a billiard room, gym, redwood sauna, garages and an enormous swimming pool that wraps the house to create the impression that it is floating in a lake. 

Set amid two-and-a-half acres planted with mature native trees, the mansion is integrated harmoniously into the landscape and overlooks the Stone Canyon Reservoir and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The house was listed in June 2018 for just under $19 million (£14.5m) but failed to sell. It is now on the market once again, priced at $14.9 million (£11.4m) and listed with The Agency. 

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