A delightful storybook house, the Witch’s House, or the Spadena House, is a fun photo opportunity in Beverley Hills between Santa Monica and Hollywood.
Where is it?
The Spadena House can be found at the following location:
Notably, it is very close to Rodeo Drive, so we think it’s a solid idea to combine a trip and visit both the Spadena House and Rodeo Drive since they’re mere blocks away from each other. To read about Rodeo Drive, click here.
Origin story
The Spadena House was built in 1921 by Hollywood art director Harry Oliver, who worked on more than 30 films during his career. The original purpose of the home was actually to serve as offices and dressing rooms for American film director Irvin Willat, who directed 39 films in his career.
In 1926, the home was moved to its present day location, where it became occupied by the Spadena family; their name still follows the house to this day.
In the 1960’s, a new family moved into the home–at this point, the home, besides its interesting exterior, was like any other private home in Los Angeles–who promptly added a garden to the property.
In 1997, the house once again entered the market, but the owners had let the house fall into poor condition. Potential buyers all were interested in tearing down the home due to its prime location in Beverly Hills lending to serious upward potential with modern architecture, but real estate agent Michael Libow swooped in to buy it in the interest of maintaining its historical value.
Libow set out to slowly restore it, and in the process he put up big black fences around the house; this in turn garnered hate mail from the community who had come to love the house as they thought he was totally set out to destroy it in the privacy of the fences.
Fortunately, Libow stuck to his original vision and brought back Oliver’s vision as well, and the city of Beverly Hills protected the home as Landmark Number 8. The Spadena House is now safe and sound.
What can you there?
So pretty much, you can’t enter, so let’s get that out of the way.
It’s a fun house to admire the architecture of; the neighborhood itself is an ordinary Beverly Hills neighborhood, so the unique roofing and windows and shape of the house stands out with extreme contrast.
Visitors have described the house as a little bit of magic, a little bit of Disneyland. The attraction is really popular with adults, but it can be a fun thing to kids to see as well.
The main thing that we recommend is to take a picture right in front of the house by the gate. It’s a really great photo op.