Iconic Stahl House, a Midcentury Modern stunner, up for sale

For decades, the Stahl House in the Hollywood Hills has been a rarity — a globally known icon of Midcentury Modernism and Los Angeles glamour, still in the hands of the family who commissioned it in 1959. But now it’s for sale.

The asking price is $25 million, which might seem a startling figure for a two-bedroom, 2,300-square-foot home on a snug lot. But that figure might not surprise lovers of modernist architecture who know it as Case Study House #22.

It was designed for the Stahl family by architect Koenig, captured on black-and-white film by photographer Shulman and has been admired worldwide ever since.

The home was described as “one of the world’s most famous buildings,” and Shulman’s image was called “perhaps the most famous picture ever taken of Los Angeles.”

“There are no comps for the Stahl house. It’s incomparable,” said an architecture director for a real estate firm in Beverly Hills. The home was included in the company’s fall catalog Nov. 12.

By Friday afternoon, the director said he had received hundreds of inquiring calls. In considering offers, he said, the family is open to individuals or institutions — “someone who’s going to understand it, honor the house and the story about it.”

An earlier version of this article said the Stahl House was commissioned in 1960. It was commissioned in 1959 and completed in 1960.

The Stahls purchased the lot in 1954 for $13,500 and enlisted Koenig to design the house after other architects were daunted by the slope of the lot. Koenig’s solution was a cantilevered L-shaped structure with walls of steel and glass, a pool and a free-standing stone-faced fireplace between the living and dining areas.

The second bedroom can only be accessed through the primary bedroom — “an efficient use of space” for a family of five, the director said. The Stahl family has said the home cost $37,500 to build.

Shortly after the home’s completion, photographer Shulman made a black-and-white photograph that became emblematic of the era. It shows the home at night, with two young women sitting inside in a cantilevered corner, its floor-to-ceiling windows revealing the lights of the L.A. Basin glittering in the background.

To bring up the lights, Shulman later said he used a seven-minute exposure. The resulting image, along with others he made of the house, is now owned by a research institute.

In years since, the home has served as a filming location for many TV and film productions, including the 1968 pilot episode of “Columbo” and the movies “Galaxy Quest” (1999) and “Nurse Betty” (2000).

“This home has been the center of our lives for decades, but as we’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly challenging to care for it with the attention and energy it so richly deserves,” the Stahl family announced on its website. The surviving children of the original owners added, “[O]ur tour program will continue unchanged for the time being, and we will provide ample notice before any adjustments are made.”

For the last 17 years, the house has been open for tours, most recently on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, starting at $60 per adult during the day, $90 in the evening, with advance booking required and tight limits on photography. However, the website indicates all tours are sold out through the end of February.

The real estate listing notes that the home is “a protected landmark and the only Case Study House with original family ownership.”

In nominating it for the National Register of Historic Places in 2009, a historian called it “perhaps the most iconic house constructed in the Case Study House Program.” That program, sponsored by a magazine from 1945 to 1966, yielded 25 completed homes, today considered top exemplars of Midcentury home design.

“There’s not a lot of these Case Study houses left. I think there are 19 now,” the director said. (He also said he had recently handled the sale of Case Study House #10 in Pasadena to a buyer who lost a home in January’s Pacific Palisades fire.)

The Stahl home stands on Woods Drive just north of West Hollywood’s city limit, about a quarter of a mile from Chateau Marmont.

Many architecturally important Southern California Modern homes have landed in the hands of institutions, including Hollyhock House (1921), the Schindler House (1922), and the Eames House (1949). The Sheats-Goldstein Residence, designed in 1961-63 and renovated in the 1990s, has been promised by its owner to the L.A. County Museum of Art.