558 Stassi Lane

Stassi Lane is a short cul-de-sac on the Los Angeles side of Santa Monica Canyon, ground granted to Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes in 1839 as Rancho Boca de Santa Monica. By the 1930s the canyon below had become Hollywood's bohemian quarter, where Salka Viertel kept her Mabery Road salon for the German emigres and Christopher Isherwood later settled on the rim above. The house at No. 558 arrived in 1947 as a plain Traditional and stayed one until 2007, when David Hertz, FAIA, the Los Angeles environmental architect who invented the recycled-concrete Syndecrete in the 1980s and later raised the 747 Wing House above Malibu, comprehensively reimagined it within the original footprint. He has returned in recent years to update his own work, a continuity few houses at this scale can claim.

Hertz opened the plan into one continuous sequence, living room, dining room, den, under vaulted, sculptured ceilings with gallery lighting and blonde hardwood floors. A polished-cement fireplace anchors the living room, bi-fold doors fold the west wall onto a deep deck that catches the late light, and warm custom cabinetry and new counters hold the palette to a calm, Japanese-inflected register. Two bedrooms and two baths fit into 1,633 square feet that live larger than the number, backed by solar panels, whole-house air and water filtration, integrated sound, and a screening area.

The parcel is the long game: 13,138 square feet running street to street, planted with mature trees, fruit trees, and vegetable beds, its wood deck fitted with a sauna, cold plunge, and outdoor shower. From the upper reaches the view opens to the ocean, and Hertz has already drawn a studio addition; the lot may allow additional structures or a split, subject to city approvals. The house last traded in December 2023 at $3,368,000, seventeen years after its pre-Hertz sale at $1,600,000 in 2006. Asking $3,599,000.

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