Bryan and Amanda Callen live in a dream home -- someone else's, that is.
The former owner had "built it for his wife," said Bryan Callen, an actor and stand-up comic. The three-story cabin-like residence is on an approximately three-quarter-acre compound in Echo Park.
Not that they don't appreciate the virtues of the property, for which they paid $1.3 million several months ago. "There's old growth pine trees and wood everywhere you look," he said.
But a large part of the appeal of the Callens' three-bedroom, 2,600-square-foot home was that it came with a one-bedroom apartment of about 1,000 square feet beneath the garage and a similarly sized one-bedroom cabin near the driveway.
Although living on a compound is new for them, Callen said, the presence of others on the property has hardly caused a ripple in their everyday life.
"Everything is pretty well separated, and there's plenty of privacy," said Callen, who noted the compound was also a source of income, particularly handy given the sporadic nature of work in his field.
Neither the National Assn. of Realtors nor the California Assn. of Realtors tracks this type of housing, per se, but innumerable compounds can be found sprinkled throughout Southland neighborhoods. They are created by owners with large lots where zoning permits such housing and by buyers purchasing multiple adjacent properties.
People of all types purchase home compounds, said Cory Weiss, estates director of Prudential California Realty in Beverly Hills. "We have foreign buyers as well as owner-users that want to live in a unit and then rent the others out." For example, he said, those in the entertainment business live and work in one unit and use the others for guest suites.
Wide appeal
The concept of a compound can appeal to celebrities seeking privacy and to multi-generational families. Weiss said one client, an executive producer of a television show, was interested in a large piece of land with a personal residence, a detached building for offices with a separate entrance and an additional guesthouse -- all within walking distance of Brentwood Village.
"It took a bit of patience, but I found it. The residence was a little smaller than they would have preferred, but they realized the ability to have three separate structures on one property two blocks from the village was something they might never see again," Weiss said.
