The Jay Paley House is a large house at 1060 Brooklawn Drive, near the borders of

Benedict Canyon Benedict Canyon is an area in the Westside of the city of Los Angeles, California. To the north of the Benedict Canyon neighborhood is the neighborhood of Sherman Oaks, to the west is the neighborhood of Beverly Glen, to the east are Beverl ...

Holmby Hills Holmby Hills is a neighborhood on the Westside of Los Angeles, California, United States. The neighborhood was developed in the early 20th century by the Janss Investment Company, which developed the rest of Westwood, Los Angeles as well as oth ...

, Bel Air, and

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. It was designed by

Paul R. Williams Paul Revere Williams, FAIA (February 18, 1894 – January 23, 1980) was an American architect based in Los Angeles, California. Most of the buildings he designed were in Southern California and included the homes of numerous celebrities, s ...

for businessman Jacob Jay Paley (1885-1960) and his wife Lilian Paley (Sevin) (1893-1954). The 13 bedroom, 15,100 sqft house was built in 1935 on a six-acre estate.

Background

Jay Paley and his brother Samuel were Jewish Russian immigrants who had founded the Congress Cigar Company, manufacturers of the

La Palina La Palina is an American cigar brand that holds historical significance in the realms of radio and advertising. The brand received sponsorship from the Congress Cigar Company, which was under the ownership of Sam Paley, the father of CBS founder ...

brand, in Chicago in the 1890s. The Paley family founded the

Columbia Broadcasting System CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

(CBS), and Paley subsequently sold a substantial shareholding in 1928 for several million dollars. He became a film producer in the early 1930s, and in 1934 founded JayPay Productions with film executive

Walter Wanger Walter Wanger (born Walter Feuchtwanger; July 11, 1894 – November 18, 1968) was an American film producer active from the 1910s, his career concluding with the turbulent production of ''Cleopatra,'' his last film, in 1963. He began at Paramo ...

in association with

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production and distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount Global. It is the sixth-oldest film studio i ...

in 1934. He sold further CBS shares to Samuel Paley, his brother, and his nephew

William S. Paley William Samuel Paley (September 28, 1901 – October 26, 1990) was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network into o ...

to finance his film production company. Paley and his wife Lilian moved to Los Angeles, and the house was commissioned. Williams had previously designed a house for Jay Paley's nephew, William S. Paley, at 200 South Mapleton Drive that was completed in 1934. Paley subsequently invested in the

Arrowhead Springs Hotel Arrowhead Springs Hotel a resort hotel, and during World War 2 Naval Convalescent Hospital Arrowhead Springs, is near the City of Arrowhead Springs, north of San Bernardino, California. Naval Convalescent Hospital Arrowhead Springs was a U.S. Na ...

, which was also designed by Williams.

Hilton ownership

After Paley's death in 1961, the furnishings were sold at auction and the estate subdivided and developed. The house, retaining the pool & tennis court, sold for $475,000 () to

Barron Hilton William Barron Hilton (October 23, 1927 – September 19, 2019) was an American business magnate, philanthropist and sportsman. The second son and successor of hotelier Conrad Hilton, he was the chairman, president and chief executive officer of ...

. The businessman and hotelier lived at the house until his death in 2019. The Hilton family sold the estate in May 2021 to former Google CEO

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and former computer engineer who was the chief executive officer of Google from 2001 to 2011 and the company's chairman, executive chairman from 2011 to 2015. He also was the ...

for $61.5 million.

Design

The two-story brick house is designed as a modified H-plan, made up of 32 rooms. The northwest and southwest wings and center are extended to form an E-configuration from the flat facade. The entrance door is framed with wooden columns and a pediment. The rear of the house also has extended northeast and southwest wings, with a two-story conical roof supported by columns summouting the semicircular southeast wing. A central hall runs the entire length of the house from north to south. A large living room is to the right, it opens to a small garden and ornamental pond. The first floor is the site of the music room and the library. The east side of the house contains the dining room, a breakfast room, and four maids rooms with a separate living room. A private garden for the servants is located next to the

service wing Servants' quarters, also known as staff's quarters, are those parts of a building, traditionally in a private house, which contain the domestic offices and staff accommodation. From the late 17th century until the early 20th century, they wer ...

. Writing in ''The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills'', Jeffrey Hyland felt that the house marked a 'new direction' for Williams as "He started with the traditional English Georgian style and then gave the residence a thoroughly modernist spirit, creating a residence that was both traditional and contemporary". The style of the house has also been described as Hollywood Regency and English Georgian. The house was built by the building contractors O'Neal and Sons, at a cost of $100,000 ().

Interiors

The interior of the house was designed by Harriet R. Shellenberger, her interior designs were removed in 1961 following Paley's death. The interior was redesigned by Kathryn Crawford in the 1960s; Crawford's designs for the house were featured in ''

Architectural Digest ''Architectural Digest'' (stylized in all caps) is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its principal subjects are interior design and landscaping, rather than pure external architecture. The magazine is published by Condé Nast ...

'' in September 1968, including gold bathroom faucets across its 13 bathrooms. After redecorating, Hilton displayed his collection of guns and model airplanes. The house also has an 80-seat movie screening room and an elevator.

Pool

The swimming pool and the pool house precede the main house and were designed by Williams to a Classical design with landscape architect c.1932 and built by the Paddock Pool Complex. The pool house contains a bar and grill and games room. The success of the swimming complex convinced Paley to commission the main house from Williams. The pool is known as the Zodiac pool as the base features the 12

signs of the Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac be ...

in blue, yellow and gold tiles imported from France with a sunburst design. The pool house was featured on the cover of ''

'' in 1933.

References

{{Reflist Holmby Hills, Los Angeles Houses completed in 1935 Houses in Los Angeles Paul Williams (architect) buildings