Villa Aurora

The Villa Aurora at 520 Paseo Miramar is located in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles and has been used as an artists residence since 1995. It is the former home of the German-Jewish author Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta. The Feuchtwangers bought this Spanish-style mansion in 1943 for only $9,000, the annual salary of a school teacher. The house was a popular meeting place for artists and the community of German-speaking émigrés. Lion Feuchtwanger wrote six of his historical novels in this house: Der Tag wird kommen, Waffen für Amerika, Die Jüdin von Toledo, Narrenweisheit oder Tod und Verklärung des Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jefta und seine Töchter and Goya oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis.

Villa Aurora was part of a building project initiated by Arthur Weber and George Ley in cooperation with the Los Angeles Times, which reported routinely on the construction of this "demonstration house". Weber hired architect Mark Daniels and interior designer Rodney Benso. The house pipe organ was built by Santa Monica Artcraft. Villa Aurora was inspired by the Teruel Cathedral outside Sevilla, Spain. The wood for the ceilings was brought in from Spain and the fountains came from Italy. The Malibu Tile Company supplied the decorative tiles throughout the entire house. When Villa Aurora was finished in 1928, it featured the latest technological inventions and novelties in domestic design such as an electric garage openers, a dishwasher, a fridge and a gas range. Due to the depression, it was not sold, and the developer Weber and his family were forced to move in themselves in 1931. Financial problems forced Weber to leave the house in 1939 and the property sat idle.

In 1941, Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife Marta arrived in Los Angeles via New York and Mexico after having escaped from the South of France. Despite the fact that the Villa was in deplorable condition (with windows broken, the cellar full of debris, the garden overgrown) they bought the house in 1943 for the price of $9,000 which at the time equalled the annual salary of a High School teacher [doubtful & substantiated by ratio of today's High School Teacher wage of $56,000, or 1943 minimum wage of 25/30 cents x hour = $750 a year]. They appreciated the location all the more as the landscape of Pacific Palisades reminded them of the Mediterranean where they had travelled extensively during the early days of their marriage. With gasoline rationing in effect, travel between Pacific Palisades and Los Angeles was difficult, making purchase of outlying real estate unappealing for most. But Lion Feuchtwanger liked this solitude for his work, and the decision to purchase the house came easily. Here, Feuchtwanger created his third library. Marta bought the furniture as second hand and she took care of the garden. While Lion used to buy books whenever there was money to spend, Marta bought plants and created a huge garden, which was over time diminished in size through some landslides.

...
Wikipedia