Los Angeles Sunset Blvd living

The Stahl House

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About two months after their dash to Las Vegas, the Stahl family decided to drive up to this mystery spot and have a look around. 

They found themselves gawping at the entirety of Los Angeles spread out below in a grid that went on for an eternity or maybe even more. 

While they stood there, the owner of the lot rolled up. 

He lived down in La Jolla and rarely came to L.A. In the kismet-filled conversation that followed, Buck agreed to buy the barren one-eighth-acre lot for $13,500, with $100 down and the seller maintaining the mortgage until the Stahls paid it off. 

A handshake later, the couple owned 1635 Woods Drive. 

On that site, they would construct Case Study House #22, designed by Pierre Koenig, arguably the most famous of all the houses in the famous Case Study program that Arts & Architecture magazine initiated in 1945. 

For generations of pilgrims, gawkers, architecture students, and midcentury-modern aficionados, it would be known simply as the Stahl House.

The Stahl House story starts in May 1954 when the Stahls purchased a small lot above Sunset Blvd. 

Over the following two years C.H and Carlotta Stahl worked weekends constructing the broken concrete wall that surrounds the buildable portion of the lot. 

During these working weekends, the design and vision for the Stahl House began to take shape. In the Summer of 1956, Buck Stahl constructed a three dimensional model of their dream home. It is with this model they interviewed and hired Architect Pierre Koenig in November 1957. 

On April 8th, 1959 the home was inducted into the Case Study House program by Arts & Architecture magazine, and assigned the number 22. Construction of the house began in May 1959 and was completed a year later in May of 1960. It was on May 9th, 1960 that the famed architectural photographer Julius Shulman captured the image that would represent modern architecture in Los Angeles during the 20th century.

The Stahl House was declared a Historic-Cultural landmark of the City of Los Angeles in 1999. In 2007, the American Institute of Architects listed the Stahl House as one of the top 150 structures on their “America’s Favorite Architecture” list, one of only 11 in Southern California. The house was included in a list of all time top 10 houses in Los Angeles in a Los Angeles Times survey of experts in December 2008. In 2013, the Stahl House became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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