Hollywood History for $60 Million
Pickfair Gate, rickzworld via flickr; Pickfair in 1955, lapl.org /Artwork: designslinger]
In hard financial times there is an old adage that your money is still safer in real estate
than in the roller coaster financial markets. Well, if you have $60 million, or so, you can own a piece of Hollywood history. Pickfair, the former Beverly Hills estate of silent screen icons Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, is up for sale. Pickford and Fairbanks are now commonly referred to as Hollywood's first power couple, on par with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The home, incorrectly identified as a former hunting lodge, was purchased by the couple in 1919. They were the pioneers of the colonization of Beverly Hills by Hollywood's elite. Architect Wallace Neff turned the shingle-clad house into a 22 room stucco mansion, ruled over by the film community's reigning queen. Everyone who was anyone, from European royalty, to U.S. presidents, to the top movie stars of the day, paid homage to Pickford at lavish dinner parties. Although the couple divorced in 1936, "America's Sweetheart" lived there until her death in 1979.
Pickford's second husband, Buddy Rogers, sold the big house to LA Laker's owner
Jerry Buss for $5.2 million, and built a smaller home in a corner of the original 18 acre estate. The old place had fallen on hard times. Pickford spent the last 20 years of her life as a recluse, holed up in a mansion that deteriorated along with her declining health.
Buss never even moved into the place and sold it to celebrity figure Pia Zadora and
her husband, Meshulam Riklis,for $7 million in 1988. Declaring the place uninhabitable and ridden with termites, Zadora and Riklis tore down everything except the front gates and a portion of the north wing
that contained the original entry tower. Preservationists, film historians and nostalgia fans were outraged at the destruction of the legendary Hollywood landmark. In 2005, the redone Pickfair sold for $22 million and the current owner, Unicom Systems, are listing the estate for $60 million.
douglasfairbanks.org /Artwork: designslinger]
Mary Pickford was not only a trend setting pioneer in the movie industry's migration
to Beverly Hills, she was also one of the highest paid individuals in the country and an astute businesswoman. On February 5, 1919, Pickford, Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and director D.W Griffith signed the papers of incorporation that created film studio United Artists. In 1923, Mary and Doug purchased the Jesse Hampton Studio lot on Santa Monica Boulevard, at the western edge of the Hollywood district, where they could film their own productions. The UA partnership didn't last, but Pickford held shares in the company until the 1960s and she retained ownership of the Santa Monica studio facility until the mid-50s.
Mary would probably not recognize the residence she called home for 60 years, but the
corner of Santa Monica and Formosa would be familiar territory. The movie lot's appearance hasn't changed much since the 1920s and the profiles of Pickford and Fairbanks are joined together - forever - in a plaster bas-relief, on the old studio's wall.
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