A Los Angeles house located high in the Hollywood Hills has a storied history that involves a midcentury modern architect, murder and movies – not to mention it is shaped like a UFO.
Although it wasn’t intended to look like an extraterrestrial spacecraft, this didn’t stop locals reporting they had seen one when the home hovering above Mulholland Drive first debuted in the 1960s.
The home was famously featured in the film ‘Body Double’, with replicas of the property also appearing in series like ‘The Simpsons’ and The Jetsons.
Yet while the house – designed by architect John Lautner – does have an uncanny resemblance to something out of an alien movie, the shape of the home was constructed to deal with a more logical problem: uneven ground.
The property sits on a 45-degree incline, according to SF Gate.
Its original owner, Leonard Malin, was gifted the plot of land by his father-in-law in the 1950s, and the aerospace engineer was determined to build something magnificent, the outlet reported.
He hired Lautner to build what would become known as the Chemosphere.
‘To [Lautner], it was just completely logical to build it this way,’ Alan Hess, an architect who wrote a book on Lautner, told SF Gate.
The single-story home sits on a circular piece of concrete that is buried underground, according to a YouTube channel that follows Lautner’s work.
A hollow concrete pillar runs up from the center, connecting to the base of the home where eight iron support pillars branch out to the edges of the house.
Additional support beams spread out from the center with smaller ones in-between, the home’s blueprints show.
The domed roof and underside of the home is made of Chem-Seal plastic panels, that were provided for free with the promise the home would be named after its product, according to SF Gate.
The hollow tube in the center of the foundation transports water and gas into the home.
It cost $140,000 – the equivalent of $1.5 million today – to build the home, Hess told SF Gate.
A unique fact about the house – which has been billed the ‘world’s first space-designed home’ – is that it’s hard to get into, with a cable car needed to bring people up to the property. They can also enter through a small bridge.
The remoteness of the home makes it hard to maintain, so much so that Malin left in 1972 after losing his aerospace job, according to SF Gate.
Dr. Richard F. Kuhn then purchased the property sometime in the 1970s, but was tragically murdered inside the home in 1976, the outlet reported.
Garland Danny Campbell, who is believed to have been the doctor’s lover, and Alfred Toliver entered the home and the latter fatally stabbed Kahn in his bedroom. They then stole his car and robbed him.
The intruders were later found guilty of first-degree murder.
After this, the home was rented out for parties over the next two decades until Benedikt Taschen acquired it in 1997.
By this point it was in need of restoration, with the German proprietor telling the LA Times the the home ‘looked like a rundown motel.’
‘It had been rented out for 10 to 12 years; it was like the ultimate party house,’ he told the publication.
The Chemosphere remains a private residence today and is not open to the public for visits.
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