Los Feliz

Update: Two-time "Survivor" contestant and actor Jonathan Penner and his wife, film director and producer Stacy Title, have sold their home in Los Feliz for $1,641,250. The Monterey colonial revival, built in 1933, has 2,745 square feet of space including a paneled den with a fireplace, four bedrooms with balconies and 2 1/2 bathrooms. Penner, 49, appeared in the 13th season of the reality series in the Cook Islands and was forced to leave Season 16's fans-versus-favorites competition in Micronesia after a knee wound became infected.

Update: A gated home in Los Feliz once owned by Walt Disney has sold for $3.7 million, which is $50,000 more than its list price. The two-story French Normandy house, built in 1932, was on the market for 12 days before entering escrow, and it closed in about a month. Original features include the stained leaded-glass windows, two bars and a Juliet balcony overlooking the two-story living room. The house has four bedrooms and five bathrooms in about 6,000 square feet. Disney, who in the 1920s co-founded what became the Walt Disney Co. with his brother Roy O. Disney, died in 1966 at 65. Listing agent Patricia Ruben of Sotheby's International Realty, Los Feliz, received inquiries from around the world about the house.

Technically, this multilevel house in the Los Feliz hills falls into the design category of Greek Revival, but just barely. "The architecture didn't feel to me like a Greek Revival house in the classic sense," says co-owner Ilene Kurtz-Kretzschmar, who has lived in the house for almost four years. "Those are so much more formal. This feels more like a Hollywood version. " And indeed it is. The house comes with a pedigree — L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument No. 301 — as a tribute to architect W.C. Tanner and the remarkable filmmaker Dorothy Arzner, who built it in 1930.

The last surviving Brown Derby restaurant building, a link to the golden age of Hollywood, is on the market for $10.6 million. Now an Italian restaurant and bank, the domed structure at the intersection of Los Feliz Boulevard and Hillhurst Avenue was the fourth Brown Derby, a small restaurant chain popular with the entertainment industry. The owners, a group led by Adler Realty Investments Inc., let go of plans they had in the mid-2000s to raze the building and build a dense residential and retail complex.

It was 3 a.m., and the booths at Fred 62, a popular Los Feliz diner, were packed. Small groups of clubgoers — women in teetering heels and tight miniskirts, tattooed men in open-neck shirts and fedoras — milled about the sidewalk, waiting for tables. Ahmed Abedin brushed past the crowd and approached the hostess with an unusual appeal. He and about a dozen friends had just come from a mosque; they needed to eat before sunrise, he explained, the start of the daylong fast for Muslims in the holy month of Ramadan.

If walls could speak. That's what came to mind when I noticed a short newspaper item announcing that the former home of Ben Margolis, an attorney who advocated on behalf of downtrodden workers, besieged Reds and persecuted labor activists, was for sale. The hillside Los Feliz house, designed by Gregory Ain in the early 1950s, with a 21st century addition by Pierre Koenig, is being offered for just under $2 million. The house Ain built Margolis is likely to sell even in the current slow market: Midcentury modern architecture is in demand at the moment.

"It's a cacophony out here tonight!" says Steve Sharp, a solitary man thrusting a sign to the sky as he stands on a corner where Hollywood and Sunset boulevards meet. "People are going crazy for what this is about! Peace! Peace!" He spins, light on his 63-year-old feet. He jumps, legs splayed, sweat spraying from his brow. When a traffic signal turns red, he pauses. When it flashes green, it's go, go, go, a river of cars passing by, Sharp cajoling each one: "Come on, come on, come on, show me some love!"

Walt Disney's onetime residence in Los Feliz, the wonderful world where his daughters grew up, has come on the market at $3.65 million. The two-story French Normandy-style house, built in 1932, sits behind gates on an acre with views to downtown. Disney, not one for retaining walls or formal gardens, according to a 1940 interview in Better Homes & Gardens, often picked native plants over imports and created informal terraces using rocks to hold back soil. The property, then an acre and a half, was home to foxes, quails, opossums and rabbits.

Michelle Stafford, a star of "The Young and the Restless," has listed her Los Feliz home for sale at $2,499,000. The Daytime Emmy-winning actress, who has a passion for restoring older homes, is finished with the 1933 Mediterranean revival estate and ready to move on to another project. The oversized rooms in the 4,533-square-foot house feature period details such as stained leaded-glass windows and decoratively painted ceiling beams. The entry rotunda is replicated in the lower level guest suite and leads to a terrace.

Walt Disney's onetime residence in Los Feliz, the wonderful world where his daughters grew up, has come on the market at $3.65 million. The two-story French Normandy-style house, built in 1932, sits behind gates on an acre with views to downtown. Disney, not one for retaining walls or formal gardens, according to a 1940 interview in Better Homes & Gardens, often picked native plants over imports and created informal terraces using rocks to hold back soil. The property, then an acre and a half, was home to foxes, quails, possums and rabbits.