Yahoo News Inside the New $38M L.A. Mansion Inspired by ‘Thunderball’ and ‘Ex Machina’
The spirit of James Bond has found an L.A. home. Perched above the Sunset Strip in Hollywood Hills West, The Californication House (previously known as Stanley 2) is the latest spec mansion developed, designed and curated by the team of Jason Somers and Branden and Rayni Williams, founders of Disco Volante. This lush modern mid-century riot of luxury, inspired by the tropical aesthetic of the Bond film Thunderball and the sleek contemporary chic of the film Ex Machina, is the team’s most audacious gamble to date.
The $38 million estate was designed by the architecture firm Vantage Design Group, with interiors by French interior designer Victoria Gillet. The 13,000-square-foot showpiece — which is being sold furnished — is also listed by Branden and Rayni Williams through their brokerage The Beverly Hills Estates, with all the attention to detail fans of the duo have come to expect. “This home is very tactile,” Rayni says. “It very much makes you want to feel and hit every sense. The minute you walk in the door, you smell it, you feel it.”
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That’s an understatement. The six-bedroom, nine-bathroom, three-level exterior is outfitted in $3 million worth of windows and doors along with black Arabian slate and Japanese Shou Sugi Ban raked wood (which Somers says was used in Ex Machina). “Black is such a sexy color,” Branden says.
The sexiness continues indoors. The treehouse-like primary suite boasts crushed burnt-orange velvet walls with views of downtown and the ocean, and features a $60,000 automated rotating bed. “The primary suite is just absolutely so sexy,” Branden says. “That’s where we sleep. That’s where we create new life. And I just think it’s pretty magnificent.”
Outdoing the rock ‘n’ roll decadence and global spiritualism of 1960s and ‘70s Hollywood that inspired it, The Californication House boasts interiors finished with green jade onyx, Roman titanium travertine and herringbone oak flooring and cedar ceilings. Crystal installations (rose quartz, citrine, amethyst) placed by a shaman have been built into the foundation and placed throughout the house to connect, protect and create harmony in the home.
Harmony though may not be front of mind for the buyer, as The Californication House seems perfectly tailored to those living life in the fast lane. There is a velvet emerald green screening room accessed by pulling down a levered samurai sword, a safari room, private bonsai garden, secret nightclub, a sunken infinity edge pool, Tahitian fire features and a globe-trotting collection of curios, including a stuffed vintage mountain lion which pays homage to the late, legendary Hollywood Hills party crasher, P-22. “It’s really exciting to present a project like this — it’s an homage to rock ‘n’ roll and vintage seventies culture,” says Somers. “You don’t know if this house was built today or back in the seventies.”
But Rayni insists that the home isn’t just for louche moguls of the night.
“It has a soul,” she says. “It’s very livable and it’s very functional. And I think aside from the aesthetic, which obviously is our first and foremost, the function and flow of it are so important. And that comes from years and years of us selling and building and designing and understanding the way people move through homes.”
In an uncertain real estate market, Branden admits this Hollywood throwback, five years in the making, couldn’t have happened in the current climate. “For homes like this, they’re done,” he says. “There are no developers that are going to spend this money and risk this because the risk to reward just doesn’t make sense anymore. But this is a passion project for us. This is something that we want to say to our comrades, our friends, our family — ‘Yeah, we built that.’” (According to Mansion Global, the developers bought the parcel for $2.9 million in 2016, per property records.)
The trio had previously collaborated on building the Stanley House, a spec home located just above The Californication House, which features interiors by Lenny Kravitz; it sold in 2018 for $33 million.
The Hollywood Reporter spoke further with Somers, the founder of Crest Real Estate, and the Williamses, about building the Californication House — not to be confused with the Venice home that was featured in the David Duchovny series Californication, which sold in 2017 for $14.6 million — the challenges during development and their favorite areas in the home.
What was it like building the house?
Somers: There’s no drywall in this house. Everything is finished material. If you pencil this thing out as a development, it doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Branden Wiliiams: For all of these big builds, it’s two years for plans and permits and then for construction, three to four. Ever since COVID, things have doubled and tripled in price.
What are some of the hallmarks of the architecture?
Somers: Architecture over the last decade has created these very heavy overhangs in houses. And it’s not always a negative, but if you look back to mid-century architecture of John Lautner and Pierre Koenig, they are such thin profile. And the reason for that is the structural packages just used to be a lot smaller. Mid-century architecture had such a lightness to its feel. And they’ve just expanded it out in recent times. So where we could, we cantilevered the structure to come to these razor thin edges. There’s insane structural engineering on this house. There’s one column at the front end holding up this entire thing. It’s pretty remarkable. And when those windows are open, oh my God. It’s the longest window pocket system in L.A., 85 feet long.
Rayni Williams: The linear footage is very expensive to build.
Branden Williams: The [pocket windows] are all automated, so they’re touch of a button. It’s a full smart home but it still looks like a retro house.
If you lived there, do you each have a favorite spot or room or area you’d hang out in?
Branden Williams: One of my favorite things to do is rest and get great REM. And literally the primary suite is like a tree-house bedroom. You have views from downtown to the ocean. And we did a $60,000 burlwood rotating bed. It’s an automated rotating bed that you could pick your view wherever you are. And then we have the TV that pops out of the ceiling and disappears. And you could sleep with the windows open because in L.A. we have that perfect weather.
Somers: I think one of the more exciting places … is this fire pit sunken inside of the pool. You’re actually seeing water at your eye level, looking over the entire city with fire at your feet. So it’s just this surreal experience of feeling like you’re inside an infinity edge pool, but warm with the fire and having a conversation with your friends, looking out over the city. That’s been a real star of the show.
Rayni Williams: My favorite area is the entertainment area because Branden and I love to entertain. So we’ve tried to make everything entertainment-centric on that lower level. So when you first come down, you’re passing by an amazing custom screen that we created on the floating staircase, and you open up into what we call the safari room. And I just imagine if I lived there, that’s where I would start with cocktails. There’s a small bar there, a wine fridge and you start there with cocktails. And then from there you can go into the nightclub … and the theater room which has crushed green velvet. It’s very much maximalism meets mid-century.
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