This actress’s career fizzled, but her Hollywood house endured. See the $15 million beauty
Listed as a Los Angeles cultural landmark, a Richard Neutra-designed house featuring timeless California glass-walled architecture and clean geometric lines and angles—not to mention storied Hollywood history—has just come on the market at $15 million.
Originally built in the 1930s, the Sten-Frenke residence sits on a double lot of lush plants in Santa Monica overlooking the ocean.
The history of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 647, as the house is known, traces back to forgotten Ukrainian actress Anna Sten, daughter of a Cossack-actor father and a Swedish-ballerina mother. Movie Mogul Samuel Goldwyn saw Sten as a “Russian Greta Garbo” and encouraged her and her film producer husband Eugene Frenke to relocate to Hollywood.
After moving to Southern California, Sten and Frenke hired one of the best young architects at the time, Richard Neutra, to design their home.
“The Sten-Frenke House was one of Neutra’s first major commissions before he went on to create many of California’s most famous homes including the Kaufmann Desert House in Palm Springs, the Sidney Kahn House in San Francisco, and the Stuart Bailey House in Pacific Palisades,” TopTenRealEstateDeals.com said in an article about the house.
The Ukrainian actress never achieved superstar status, but the house did. In 1934, it became the first modern home to ever win the top prize in the House Beautiful magazine competition.
Current owner Marc Forster, who directed “Finding Neverland” and “The Kite Runner,” has updated and restored the home to Neutra’s original plans.
The 4,000-square-foot home, with a guest house, offers five bedrooms and seven baths in all. A jungle-plant landscape gives privacy to occupants even as walls of glass let the sunlight filter in. There is a large living room with a fireplace and an oval-shaped dining room with wrap-around windows that jut out into the garden.
“The three-bedroom house is Neutra at his best: sublime natural light garnered through continuous ribbons of glass; serene, contemplative spaces vying for extended visits; and an immediate and direct connection to the exquisitely-planted, expansive lot,” the official listing reads. “The home sits at the rear of the property presiding over the impressive, ozonated pool, which was designed to place the beautiful Sten and her coterie on display.”
The master suite has an upstairs terrace with ocean views and an office.
The Sten-Frenke residence featured prominently in Lisa Cholodenko’s 2002 film “Laurel Canyon,” LACurbed reported.
Frenke’s career was a bit more promising than his wife’s. He collaborated with director John Huston on films. He went on to work in B-grade films, many of which starred his wife.
Sten died in 1993 at the age of 84 in New York City. Her husband preceded her in death in 1984.
Billy Rose of The Agency, Beverly Hills, is the listing agent.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 8:37 AM.
