Rescuing a Slapstick Palace

Project:
Buster Keaton's Residence
Beverly Hills, California
Project Managers:
Christopher Bedrosian and John Bercsi

by Nancy A. Ruhling

In Beverly Hills, it is known simply as Buster Keaton's Italian villa, but that name doesn't begin to tell the story of this colorful Roaring Twenties house, whose rise, fall and rebirth reads like the plot of a classic Hollywood movie.

Writer/director/silent film star Buster Keaton, his signature porkpie hat forever tilted at a rakish angle, was pretty much on the top of the worldwhen he finished building his mansion in 1926.

He had his own production company, where he would eventually make 19 short films and 10 features; his wife, Natalie, had given birth to their second son, and he had just finished "The General," which would become one of his greatest films. If Hollywood was in its golden age, Keaton was indeed one of its golden boys and his house reflected that Midas touch.

The 10,000-sq.ft. Italian villa, designed by architect Gene Verge with vast input from Keaton, had more than 20 rooms, including five bedrooms, a room-size closet for Natalie's extensive and expensive wardrobe, and six baths. It, along with a guest house, was built upon five lavishly landscaped acres that included a motorized trout stream and an aviary that encircled the property. Tom Mix lived next door, and Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Rudolph Valentino, and a stable of other stars were neighbors. The house itself cost $300,000 -- an outlandish fortune at the time, even by Hollywood standards.

It was a financial stretch for Keaton, and almost as soon as he moved in, his luck began to change: Natalie, who reportedly was spending $800 to $900 a week on her wardrobe, demanded a divorce; talkies started supplanting silents; the stock market crashed; and Keaton began drinking and gambling heavily. He lost his production company in 1928 and, to keep up with his mounting household bills, was forced to work for the movie mill MGM and relinquish all creative control of his work. By the early 1930s, the house had been sold to MGM dance team Fanchon and Marco. As styles changed, the house became a white elephant and fell into decline and disrepair through successive owners. It was sold to Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton and husband Cary Grant (in Hollywood circles a.k.a. "Cash and Cary" during their 1942-45 marriage); then a millionaire glass manufacturer; and finally in 1948 to British actor James Mason and his wife, Pamela.

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