A 100-year-old Hancock Park mansion inspired by the Italian Renaissance is available for just under $20 million.
The 17,000-square-foot property at 107 Fremont Place is on the market for about $19.9 million, Mansion Global reported. The home, referred to as the “Hart-Jacobs Residence,” sits on a 1.5-acre lot and is newly restored more than two decades after coming under the stewardship of philanthropist David Jacobs.
Built in 1923 as Hollywood began to take off, the home was originally the personal residence of developer George Hart. Meyer & Holler, the architecture firm behind Hollywood Boulevard’s iconic Chinese and Egyptian Theatres, designed the home with Italian Renaissance Revival elements including marble floors outside and pink accents throughout the house, drawing inspiration from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Jacobs dropped $3.7 million for the property in 2003 after it had been neglected for decades. With the help of designer and ceramicist Gene Farkas, Jacobs not only brought the home back to its former glory, but embarked on a major expansion and restoration project on the site. The Indiana University donor is also the owner of several businesses, including a construction company that he used to renovate the Fremont Place property.
The ambitious makeover included adding more than 10,000 square feet to the original house and ensuring every detail was as period-accurate as possible.
“Every single piece of hardware is all period correct,” listing agent Crosby Doe of Crosby Doe Associates told Mansion Global. “If the original antique pieces were not available, he would literally recreate them from scratch.”
The main house boasts formal sitting and dining rooms, a live-in kitchen, a library, a grand ballroom, a club room and a conservatory. Upscale touches like an ornate fireplace, dark bookcase and low-hanging chandeliers lead the way to a grand spiral staircase opening up to the second-floor balcony overlooking the rest of the house and the backyard. On the ground floor, a wraparound porch with archways offers a place to sit or get around the property dotted with Tuscan-inspired landscaping and statues.
Besides the five-bedroom house, the estate has a two-bedroom guest house above a garage, a gate house with staff rooms, and an isolated tower with a panoramic view of the property perfect for “smoking cigars and playing poker,” Doe said.