LA Not So Confidential

For years my mom has been begging me to do some stalking of one of her favorite movies, LA Confidential. Ever since the movie came out back in 1997 she has been obsessed with finding the various houses used during filming, but none more so than David Strathiarn’s character’s beautiful, ultra modern hillside abode. Luckily, the house was a snap for me to find as the address was given right on imdb’s LA Confidential filming locations page. 🙂 In the movie David Strathiarn plays Pierce Patchett, a very wealthy businessman who runs a high class prostitution ring, where all of the prostitutes are made up to look like famous actresses. Supposedly, the ring was based on a real brothel that truly did exist back in the hey dey of Tinseltown. In the movie, Pierce lives in an amazing modern looking manse built right into the side of a hill. In real life that house is called the Lovell Health House and it is just as breathtaking in person as it appears onscreen. The Lovell Health House, or Lovell House, was commissioned by doctor Philip Lovell and built by architect Richard Neutra. Construction began in 1927 and was completed in 1929. Health-nut Lovell was completely obsessed with diet and exercise and he wanted the house to be built in such a way as to benefit the health of its occupants, which is how the house came to be called the “Lovell Health House”. Included in the home was a swimming pool, an exercise room, an eight foot tall food cooler, a water purification system, juicing equipment and plenty of windows to allow the occupants to be close to nature. The unique home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. Amazingly the Lowell family only lived in the house for one year before selling it to a different family.

Both the interior and the exterior of the house show up several times in LA Confidential and the home looks much the same in person as it did on the big screen. Unfortunately you can’t see a whole lot of the home from the street. If you want a more in depth view, I recommend renting the movie for your very own up close and personal private tour of the home.Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂 Stalk It: Pierce Patchett’s house can be found at 4616 Dundee Drive in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. To see the garage area, where filming also took place, just drive a bit south of the house to the large concrete driveway and you’ll see the garage.