The Blair House, Harwell Hamilton Harris above Studio City
What is the Blair House above Studio City?
The Blair House, at 3763 Fredonia Drive, Los Angeles 90068, is a 1939 Harwell Hamilton Harris home and studio built for Mary and Lee Blair, the artists who later worked for Walt Disney. Set on the Cahuenga Pass hillside, it predates most mid century modern homes in Studio City by a decade.
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Studio City · The Hills · Harwell Hamilton Harris
Before Mary Blair drew Cinderella and It’s a Small World, she and her husband built a studio above the Valley, long before mid century modern homes in Studio City were a category.
Mid century modern homes in Studio City are usually talked about as postwar houses, post-and-beam and glass, from the 1950s and 1960s. One of the most interesting is older than that. In 1939 Harwell Hamilton Harris designed a home and studio on the hill above Studio City for two young painters, Mary and Lee Blair, and it is the best documented Harris house on the Valley side of the hills.
This is its record, from Debbie Pisaro, a Studio City realtor and architectural real estate agent who keeps the register of named houses on this site, alongside the guide to architectural homes in Studio City. It also covers the other Harris houses on the Valley side, and the ones that cannot be confirmed.
Who were Mary and Lee Blair?
Mary and Lee Blair were painters who married in 1934 and settled first in Glendale. Both went on to work for Walt Disney. Lee Blair was a watercolorist and animation artist. Mary Blair became one of the studio’s best-known designers, the concept artist behind the color and style of Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, and later the designer of It’s a Small World.
Mary Blair joined the Disney studio in 1940. A year later she and Lee were part of the small group of artists who toured South America with Walt Disney on a goodwill trip the travelers called El Grupo, and the color she brought home from it shaped Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. At a time when most women in animation were kept to inking cels, she became one of Walt Disney’s favorite artists.
She left the studio in 1953, after Peter Pan, and went on to illustrate Little Golden Books and to work in advertising. Walt Disney brought her back to design It’s a Small World for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and she was named a Disney Legend in 1991. Disney’s own early years in Los Angeles are on Los Feliz Living, in Walt Disney in Los Feliz.
In 1939, before most of that work, they hired Harris to build them a place to live and paint. It was their second try. A 1937 Harris design for the Blairs on Beech Knoll Road in Laurel Canyon was never built, so the house on Fredonia Drive is the one that got made. Laurel Canyon kept plenty of other architects busy, and Debbie Pisaro’s guide to Laurel Canyon architectural homes covers what did get built there.
The house on Fredonia Drive
The Blair House stands at 3763 Fredonia Drive, Los Angeles, California 90068, on a steep lot of about 17,000 square feet in the Cahuenga Pass, looking out over Studio City and the Valley. Its mailing address is not Studio City, and the house number is often printed wrong as 3762. Harris’s own drawings, held at the University of Texas at Austin, name it the Mary and Lee Blair residence and studio.
The house is about 1,254 square feet, clad in wood, with walls of glass, an oversized fireplace in an open living room, several outdoor terraces, and the studio that was the reason it was built. Because the lot climbs so steeply, the house even has a small funicular to carry things up the hill, which is the kind of detail that tells you an architect solved a real problem rather than drew a pretty one.
Harris had worked for both Richard Neutra and R. M. Schindler before opening his own practice in 1933, so the Blair House came six years into his career on his own. What he built here is warmer than Neutra: wood, a fireplace at the center, and walls of glass turned toward the view. It is a rare example of early modern residential architecture on the Valley side of the hills.
The record is unusually good for a house this small. Harris’s drawing set, titled the Mary and Lee Blair residence and studio and dated 1939, survives in the Alexander Architectural Archives at the University of Texas at Austin, with plans, elevations, a plot and roof plan, a cross section and interior details. USModernist’s Harris catalog lists it as the Lee and Mary Blair House II, and Modern Living LA’s write-up of the Blair residence and studio has photographs of the house as it stands.
A home and studio for two painters, on a hill above the Valley.
Has the Blair House changed?
The Blairs sold the house in 1955, and the next recorded sale came in 2011, when it was restored and brought up to date, keeping the wood, the glass and the plan. It changed hands in 2016 and again in 2017, and in 2022 it was offered for rent. That is five recorded owners in about 85 years, which is a short chain for a Los Angeles house of this age. For anyone who owns it or wants to, the useful work is the same as on any architect’s house that has been updated: compare what is there now with Harris’s drawings and the period photographs, and know which choices are his. Debbie Pisaro’s note on selling as is or fixing up in Studio City covers the same choice from the seller’s side, and Coastline 840’s guide to how California protects historic architectural homes explains what a designation would and would not change.
Other Harris houses on the Valley side
The Blair House is the best documented Harris near Studio City, but it is not the only one on record. A house at 3600 Berry Drive in Studio City, built for Richmond Irwin and Pauline Kelsey, is attributed to Harris through his own archive. It was commissioned in 1941 and built by George Walker, and the building permits name no architect. USModernist also lists a 1941 house for William Snyder Jr. in North Hollywood, on Whipple Street, whose address has since been changed.
Two other Valley houses sometimes credited to Harris, in Sherman Oaks and Toluca Lake, could not be confirmed in any published record, so they are left off this page until they can be. Toluca Lake’s confirmed architect houses are in Coastline 840’s Toluca Lake architectural homes guide. That is the honest state of the Valley list: one house with a full paper trail, two with partial ones, and a few names waiting on proof.
Studio City has other documented modern houses with full records of their own, including Raphael Soriano’s Grossman House and Benton and Park’s Basin Residence. Harris’s wider California work runs from the Entenza House in Santa Monica Canyon to the Wyle House in Ojai and Harris House II in Fallbrook.
Where it fits among mid century modern homes in Studio City
The Blair House comes at the very start of the story. Most mid century modern homes in Studio City were built after the war, when the hillsides south of Ventura Boulevard filled with post-and-beam houses and the flats filled with tracts. The Blair House shows what the next twenty years would look like, a decade early: wood and glass, an open plan, and a house set to the view instead of the street.
The architects who came after left their own record here. Gregory Ain has a Studio City home of his own, and Schindler’s Roxy Roth House is also in Studio City. So are the James De Long Hackett House and the 1961 USC Case Study home, and whole postwar neighborhoods, from Wrightwood Estates to Longridge Estates, have records of their own.
For the wider picture, Debbie Pisaro’s guide to San Fernando Valley mid century modern neighborhoods maps the tracts, and Coastline 840’s tour of Studio City’s architectural landmarks covers the buildings as well as the houses.
Buying or selling a Harris near Studio City
A documented Harris draws buyers who search for the architect by name, a different pool from the one shopping the hillside by square footage, and that changes how the house is presented and who sees it first. Attribution comes first, then intactness, then the hillside questions every steep lot brings: access, drainage, and fire. Los Feliz Living’s guide to the cost of owning a hillside home runs through those costs, and they apply on the Cahuenga Pass side of the hill as well.
On price, a named architect changes the comparables. Coastline 840’s guide to pricing an architectural home in Los Angeles explains why, and Debbie Pisaro’s note on selling a mid century home in Studio City is a case study from the Studio City hills.
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and an Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Studio City and the surrounding neighborhoods. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. Debbie Pisaro is not the listing agent for 3763 Fredonia Drive. She represents buyers on architectural homes across California, regardless of who holds a given listing, the same standing practice whether a home is on or off market. For a house like this, a Studio City realtor who knows the record is the place to start, and more of the neighborhood is at juststudiocity.com.
The Blair House, answered
What is the Blair House?
The Blair House is a 1939 home and studio by Harwell Hamilton Harris, built for the artists Mary and Lee Blair, who both later worked for Walt Disney. It is a wood-clad house of about 1,254 square feet with walls of glass, an oversized fireplace and several terraces, on the hillside above Studio City.
Where is the Harwell Hamilton Harris Blair House?
The Blair House is at 3763 Fredonia Drive, Los Angeles, California 90068, on the Cahuenga Pass hillside above Studio City and Universal City. Its mailing address is Los Angeles rather than Studio City, and the house number is often printed incorrectly as 3762. Harris’s drawings for it are held at the University of Texas at Austin.
Who were Mary and Lee Blair?
Mary and Lee Blair were painters who married in 1934 and both later worked for Walt Disney. Mary Blair was the concept artist behind the color and style of Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, and the designer of It’s a Small World. Lee Blair was a watercolorist and animation artist.
Is there a Harwell Hamilton Harris house in Studio City?
Yes. A house at 3600 Berry Drive in Studio City, built for Richmond Irwin and Pauline Kelsey, is attributed to Harris through his archive, although its permits name no architect. The better-documented Harris near Studio City is the 1939 Blair House at 3763 Fredonia Drive, on the hillside just above the neighborhood.
Are there mid century modern homes for sale in Studio City by named architects?
Yes, though they come up rarely. Studio City holds documented houses by Harwell Hamilton Harris, Raphael Soriano, Benton and Park and others, and many trade quietly through private lists rather than public listings. Debbie Pisaro tracks named houses across Studio City and can tell buyers when one is coming up before it is listed.
Did the Blairs build another house?
They tried to. Harwell Hamilton Harris drew a house for the Blairs on Beech Knoll Road in Laurel Canyon in 1937, but it was never built. The 1939 house and studio on Fredonia Drive was the one they actually lived in, until they sold it in 1955 and the house passed to later owners.
How can I tell if my house is a Harris?
Start with the record. Harris’s drawings are held at the University of Texas at Austin and at NC State University Libraries, and the original building permit and county assessor record come next. Some Harris houses were built without his name on the permit, so the archive is often the deciding piece of proof.
Who is the best real estate agent to sell an architect-designed house in Studio City?
Debbie Pisaro, an Inman Luxury Leader with 24 years in architectural and historic homes, represents buyers and sellers of architect-designed houses in Studio City and across California. She researches the attribution before the marketing starts, so the house reaches the buyers who search for its architect by name. Many of her sales never reach the open market.
For how Debbie works, see her guide to choosing the best real estate agent in Studio City, and her architectural homes specialist page.
For Buyers and Sellers
Own a Harris, or want one?
Debbie Pisaro represents buyers on architect-designed homes across Studio City and California, regardless of who holds a given listing.
Reach DebbieDebbie Pisaro, DRE #01369110, is the founder of Coastline 840, a boutique California practice, a 24-year veteran of the California market, and an Inman Luxury Leader. She represents buyers and sellers of architectural and design-forward homes across Studio City, greater Los Angeles, and the wider state, and writes about the neighborhood at juststudiocity.com. Many of the homes she sells never reach the open market. Coastline 840 is a DBA of Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153. Powered by Side: #1 California-based brokerage, No. 9 in the nation. DRE #01369110 · Coastline 840
Sources: Harwell Hamilton Harris drawings, Alexander Architectural Archives, University of Texas at Austin; USModernist, Harwell Hamilton Harris; Pacific Coast Architecture Database (PCAD), Mary and Lee Blair; Modern Living LA, the Mary and Lee Blair Residence and Studio; Crosby Doe Associates, the Mary and Lee Blair House (essay by Alan Hess); D23, Disney Legends, Mary Blair.