After being listed by the Zappa Family Trust earlier this summer, the late Frank Zappa‘s Laurel Canyon home has sold for $5.25 million. The beautiful compound, contained on a relatively small half-acre of land in the Hollywood Hills, was purchased by Zappa in the late 60’s for just $74,000 and came under the ownership of his family after his death in 1993.
The faux-Tudor house (built in the late 1930’s) boasts six bedrooms and seven bathrooms in 6,759 square-feet of multi-level living space, and features a variety of quirky embellishments,like the dragon mural in the formal dining room, porthole windows and doors salvaged from vintage submarines. It also features various architecturally unusual reading nooks and creative work spaces. In addition to the main house, the land also includes two architecturally adventurous detached guest houses and an additional attached guest apartment. Other features of note include a double-height art gallery with parquet flooring, Zappa’s sprawling recording studio, and “The Vault,” a storage chamber beneath the house where Zappa kept his private archives under lock and key during his lifetime. The terraced, tree-shaded grounds include a hodgepodge of decks and patios, a greenhouse, swimming pool, roof top tennis court, and lush gardens with mosaic accents.
The sale of the house is another step in the ever-contentious disputes between the surviving Zappas regarding control over and rights to the Zappa Family Trust. You can see a gallery of photos of the house here.