This house on Lexington Road in Beverly Hills is the ne plus ultra of a particular kind of Los Angeles fabulousness. For more than twenty years, until her death last month, it belonged to Sue Mengers, one of the first big female talent agents and one of the biggest agents period of the 1970s (clients included Barbra Streisand, Michael Caine, Mike Nichols, Bob Fosse, and Sidney Lumet). After her retirement in the late eighties, she was famous for her dinner party salons at this house, where she would introduce Jack Nicholson and Gore Vidal to Tina Fey and smoke pot with Bill Maher (every big star--actors, comedians, directors, writers, and journalists--showed up there at one point or another, as detailed by Graydon Carter in Vanity Fair and in the New York Times). The house was quite something on its own--it was built in 1959 and designed by John Elgin Woolf, the king of Hollywood Regency.
Carter describes the setting: "Her house was a John Woolf jewel, with great, tall Hollywood Regency doors and a living room that looked over a largely unused, egg-shaped pool. The room was awash with soft colors, Aubusson, and white orchids. Sue would sit at one end of the seating area, two large facing sofas flanking her and a chair at the other end. She held court, to be sure."
And he quotes Anjelica Huston, a frequent guest: "The main room where she entertained had a sort of Versailles-like feeling: a very high-ceilinged pink room, with an 18th-century feeling to it."
The three bedroom, three bathroom house comes of course with a dining room, library, and that oval pool, and sits on .46 acres. Asking price is $4.995 million; offers are only accepted through December 15.
· 1207 LEXINGTON Rd [Redfin]
· Remembering Sue Mengers: Everybody Came to Sue's [Vanity Fair]
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