Today, we offer our first in depth, eye witness report from a Curbed reader on his visit to the SchindlerWilson house, a prized Silver Lake landmark,featuring 3 bed/3 bath and now for sale to those that can afford it. And if you can't, turn away.
Went to the first open house for Schindler's Wilson Residence in Silverlake. A cool $1.9 million buys you a fairly well maintained and/or restored 1930s hillside Schindler with stunning reservoir views and good energy. The good news: almost all of the crucial original Schindler touches remain, from his bull-nosed plastering and simple wood built-ins to glassed-in interior soffit lighting. The gardens were wonderful...
The bad news: the mix of restored and unrestored and renovated isn't particularly cohesive (someone needs to bring a singular point of view to the house and choose "strict period" versus "upgrade the bathrooms and finishes to current luxury levels, matching the kitchen which is almost there") and the tri-level flow isn't the best (cramming all three bedrooms on the small middle level and putting two office rooms on the lowest, rather than offering privacy for the master suite). The better part of the gardens are also unusable and simply meander down the street to street lot without offering a reason to linger - the lot, not the landscape architecture, drives that. As for pricing, the $1.9 million equates to about $800 a square foot, which is within the neighborhood comps plus the marketplace 20-30% premium for a house with such provenance. However, be prepared to spend an additional $50,000 to $100,000 to add final polish and personalization, tying the needed bow of cohesion and completion around the project. I've looked at nearly every house of this type sold in the past several years, and this is priced market appropriate.
Damn it! If only we hadn't bought that two bedroom ranch house in Palmdale we'd so be all over this.
· SchindlerWilson - 2090 Redcliff Street, Silver Lake, CA 90039 [ArchitectureforSale.com]