#52: Case Study House No. 21 (Bailey House - Hollywood Hills)

Architect Pierre Koenig’s thoroughly modern jewel in the Hollywood Hills epitomized the Case Study House program

Case Study House #21, ca. 1959 (that’s the Baileys in the shot). Photo by Julius Shulman. Courtesy and © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Case Study House #21, ca. 1959 (that’s Mrs. Bailey in the shot). Photo by Julius Shulman. Courtesy and © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).
Case Study House #21, ca. 1959. Photo by Julius Shulman. Courtesy and © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 2013

Pierre Koenig, the architect that gave us the Stahl House the following year, designed this 1959 wonderbox on a tiny lot in the Hollywood Hills for psychologist Walter Bailey and his wife Mary.

The footprint of the house is just over 1300 square feet of living space. Koenig made the most of it by opening up the space, putting the absolute minimum of opaque walls on the interior. Sitting in the dining room eating a sandwich, Walter could watch Mary pull into the carport through a glass wall, with only some brick walkways and a pool of water between them. The enclosed bathroom in the core of the house is the main divider, and even that looks out into a courtyard. The rest of the home is defined by clear glass, simple steel frames and clever orientation of spaces and walls to provide just enough discretion, and plenty of natural light. You can look at the hillside on the west edge of the property from almost anywhere in the house. Cross-ventilation is provided by the many sliding glass doors, and the pools of circulating water that surround the house also help keep it cool during the warmer months.

In a lot of ways, this home epitomized the ideals of Arts & Architecture Magazine’s Case Study House program: small-scale homes made out of inexpensive materials. Clean, unfussy lines and efficient use of space. Easily reproducible.

November 21, 2021
View into the Case Study House 21 core. November 21, 2021.
Opaque wall on the facade. November 21, 2021.
Ladscaping near the south side. November 21, 2021.
Address on a rock. November 21, 2021.
Puppy toy nailed to tree just north of the house. November 21, 2021.

The Baileys sold this mid-century marvel in 1969. Its next owners didn’t have as much appreciation for Koenig’s design; they added skylights and a fireplace, replaced the floors and completely redid the kitchen, undoing some of the house’s unique spatial flow.

But in the late ‘90s, film producer Dan Cracchiolo fell in love with the Bailey House through Julius Shulman’s photos, bought it and hired Koenig to restore it to his original specs, nearly 40 years after its original construction. In 2002, the house was bought by another respectful film producer Michael LeFetra, who helped it earn status as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument to preserve its integrity in perpetuity. Julius Shulman was even invited back to photograph it again.

June 10, 2022
June 10, 2022
June 10, 2022

When I visited in November 2021 and June 2022, the Bailey House was undergoing another transformation at the behest of another film producer-owner, Alison Sarofim. The dirt underneath the foundation has been slipping away for years, and the house had to be stripped down to its bones to fix the issue. As of October 2023 the work seems nearly complete. The internal glass walls are installed, a bunch of planting has been done on the street side, and the water feature is filled in again. The Bailey House has survived alteration and restoration cycles before, and it’ll happen again. I’ll be back to see it when it’s livable again.