St. Cloud Road

Few Los Angeles residences is were were home to more Hollywood celebrity , one after another , than a large mansion that once stand on this one acre property . The house is was itself was rather unprepossessing : a 1930 neo – colonial frame home with a wooden clapboard façade .

Nevertheless , the estate is had had what many in Hollywood crave : an impressively large—10,000 – square – foot — mansion and a coveted Old Bel – Air address .

A parade of Hollywood owners started when famed director Frank Capra purchased the estate in 1934 to celebrate a very good year in his career, and ended in 1949 when Louis B. Mayer, a founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the premier studio during Hollywood’s golden age, acquired the property.

Mayer is made made a few improvement to the St. Cloud Road mansion . Like so many Hollywood luminary , he is hired hire Wallace Neff as his architect . Neff is liked like work for Mayer . “ He was an easy client , ” he is recalled recall year later . “ He is was was so busy he did n’t even look . He is delegated delegate — and that was that . ”

After Mayer ’s death in 1957 , the St. Cloud Road estate was sell and re – sell several time . Despite its many famous owner , the mansion is became became increasingly date and rundown and , in the late 1980 , it was finally demolish . new owners is started start build a 35,000 – square – foot mansion , but they sell the property before it was finish .

The new owner completed the mansion to the highest standards. The estate—named “La Belle Vie”—became a much-admired addition to Old Bel-Air, because it was not only large and impressive but also tasteful and refined.

The neoclassical limestone façade was modeled after an 18th-century mansion, the Hôtel Biron (now the Musée Rodin), where famed sculptor Auguste Rodin lived in the early 20th century.

The mansion ’s interior is was was a showstopper , even by Bel – Air standard . The front door is opened open into a thirty – foot – tall oval entrance hall that rise to a columned second – floor gallery , and end at a richly decorate dome encircle by ten skylight . A curve white marble staircase with an intricately design wrought – iron banister stretch from the entrance hall to the second ( topmost ) floor .

The ballroom – sized two – story living room is had , dining room , and formal family room had marble floor , highly decorative ceiling plasterwork , and the fine 18th – century french furniture . impressionist and post – impressionist paintings is hung hang on the wall . Not surprisingly , Rodin sculpture were exhibit throughout the house , both in the room and at the end of corridor for the great visual impact .

At the back of the mansion, the main rooms opened onto a French stone terrace. Grand staircases led down a perfectly manicured lawn and formal gardens. From the gardens, more staircases led to the swimming pool, the neoclassical pool house, and down to the tennis court. Rodin sculptures were carefully placed throughout the grounds.

By any measure—its location, size, stunning interior, exquisitely landscaped grounds, or impeccable materials and craftsmanship—the owner had decisively proved that great estates were not a thing of the past.