This Historic Mid-Century Modern Home Overlooking Los Angeles Is on the Market for the Very First Time

Sixty-five years after this mid-century modern house in Los Angeles was immortalized by the photographer Julius Shulman, the structure is up for sale for the first time. Known as the Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, the 1960 home in the Hollywood Hills is listed for $25 million.

“This home has been the center of our lives for decades,” write owners Shari and Bruce Stahl, whose parents built the house, in a statement. “The time has come to identify the next steward of Case Study House #22—someone who not only appreciates its architectural significance but also understands its place in the cultural landscape of Los Angeles and beyond.”

The Stahl House is a cantilevered two-bedroom, three-bathroom abode protruding from the hillside. Designed by architect Pierre Koenig, its glass walls provide residents expansive views of L.A. The real estate firm Agency Beverly Hills listed the home in its fall catalog on November 12, and hundreds of inquiries poured in within days.

“There are no comps for the Stahl House; it’s incomparable,” William Baker, the firm’s architecture director, tells the Los Angeles Times’ Christopher Reynolds. Shari and Bruce Stahl are looking for a buyer “who’s going to understand it, honor the house and the story about it,” Baker adds.

In the early 1950s, Buck and Carlotta Stahl were renting a nearby home in L.A., Shari told Los Angeles magazine’s Alison Martino in 2015. “They were constantly looking at this side of the hill and wondering about the lots being created on the mountain,” she said. “One afternoon, curiosity got the better of them; they got in their Cadillac and decided to take a drive to look at the lots.”

Buck and Carlotta ended up meeting one of the lots’ owners, and they agreed to buy the property for $13,500. For the next few years, Buck laid concrete on the edges of the lot and created a model for the type of house he wanted. He struggled to find an architect willing to bring his vision to life. Most believed the location to be too challenging for his ideas.

Eventually, the Stahls hired Koenig using subsidies from the Case Study program, an effort by Arts & Architecture magazine to sponsor the creation of modernist houses. Case Study “was about experimentation” and “using new materials and building in places that maybe previously the technology didn’t really allow,” Adrian Scott Fine, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Conservancy, tells the Guardian’s Cecilia Nowell.

“All those things are wrapped up into a place like the Stahl House, which was avant-garde, modern and unthinkable in terms of how it was built on that site that everyone else thought, at the time, was unbuildable,” Fine adds.

In 1959, construction began on the Stahl House. Koenig’s L-shaped design was made of a steel frame, which was raised in a day by a team of workers, Bruce told PBS in 2024. The home also included a pool. After a year of construction, the Stahls moved in.

Shortly after the home was finished, Shulman, an architecture photographer, captured it in an iconic series of photos. Shari told Los Angeles magazine that Shulman shot the pictures in one day, and all their featured subjects were his friends. The most famous of the images—and one of the most famous photos ever taken in L.A.—shows two well-dressed women sitting in the living area, the lights of the city in the background.

“That photograph was pivotal in so many peoples’ lives,” architect Tom Kundig told Vanity Fair’s Mark Rozzo in 2021. “I mean, is there any other photograph that captures in a single image the potential of architecture, the optimism of it? I don’t know if there is.”

In 2013, the Stahl House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Seventeen years ago, Shari and Bruce opened their parents’ house for public tours, which have supported property maintenance, per the statement.

Case Study House #22: The Stahl House | Artbound | PBS SoCal

These tours “have allowed us to keep our parents’ spirit alive in the place they built together,” write Shari and Bruce. The house’s sale marks the end of 65 years of Stahl family ownership, and the siblings hope its next owner will recognize its cultural significance.

“I think any time a longtime owner … is transferring hands of a property like this, it always gives us a little bit of a pause, because you never know what the next owner, what their intentions will be,” Fine tells the Guardian. “Will they understand and appreciate the house, as in this particular case the Stahl family has?”