A Pasadena home that Julius Shulman photographed shortly after its completion in 1949 will hit the market Sunday, July 21, for $1.64 million.
Known as Hernly House after its original owner, the 1,737-square-foot post-and-beam dwelling sits on an oversized hillside lot with a pool. It boasts three bedrooms, two bathrooms and three-quarter-inch plywood walls when drywall was becoming the norm.
“The walls are smooth, with ribbon grain mahogany defining the public spaces, and elm and birch alternating among the bedrooms, complimented by distinctive combed mahogany ceilings,” the listing reads.
It adds, “These natural ply faces were sealed but left exposed.”
The modernist architect Lawrence Test designed the house for C.H. “Henry” Hernly, who arrived in the area as a salesman for the now-defunct U.S. Plywood Corp. in Los Angeles in 1945. So, of course, plywood played a prominent role in the design, which grabbed Shulman’s attention.
“Shulman was all over Southern California, with his finger on the pulse of anything and everything going on in the world of modern architecture,” said architecture broker Brian Linder of Compass, the listing agent. “So it only makes sense that he would have photographed the home, as he was photographing all the other great modern architecture being built in the city around the same time.”
Hernly told the Los Angeles Times in 1951 that the plywood, glued and nailed directly to the house’s framing, had insulating properties that helped to prevent excessive heat loss due to the widespread use of large windows.
The house was also featured in the Pasadena Star News and Architectural Forum magazine. It was a stop on the L.A. County chapter of the American Institute of Architects tour in 1953.
Today, the home is in near-original condition, thanks to the Kliore family, whose late patriarch, Arvydas Kliore, was a senior research scientist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They have owned it since June 1966.
Features include a marine-grade Philippine mahogany exterior and a flat roofline.
“The exterior was painted at some point, but the interior has only been lacquered and waxed, so the wood grain is still clear and visible,” Linder said.
Original oak parquet floors, decorative linoleum, built-ins and metal-framed windows are present.
The kitchen is accented with orange and includes a breakfast bar. It opens to a dining area.
“Architecture lovers are amused to find that the same floor and wall finishes visible in the original Shulman photographs are still in place in the home being marketed for sale,” Linder said.
He added that the house featured in “Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide” by David Winter and David Gebhard and the California Historical Resources Inventory Database is ‘eligible for city designation as an individual landmark. ‘
Once registered, the owner can apply for Mills Act property tax benefits in exchange for its historical maintenance.
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