One of eight “boat houses” designed by noted California architect Harry Gesner in Los Angeles has hit the market Wednesday for $2.49 million. 

The cantilevered homes were built into the Hollywood Hills by Norwegian shipbuilders in the 1950s, with wood paneling and peaked A-frame roofs reminiscent of a boat at sea. The current home for sale, perched above Cahuenga Pass along Pacific View Drive, is the largest of the set, with three levels spanning 2,380 square feet and two decks offering panoramic views of the Hollywood sign and the Santa Monica mountains.

“The moment you walk in, because of the drama of its shape, you feel like you’ve been transported into a movie set,” said Ben Belack of the Agency, who is marketing the property.  

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“What’s so special about this house is it really conjures the imagination, a youthful imagination and excitement,” he added.

The sellers, writer Steven Barrow Barlow and Daniel Morgan, purchased the home off-market from the original owner, according to Belack, who represented the partners in the 2019 sale, for $1.2 million. They found the Mid-Century Modern home “remarkable,” according to Barrow Barlow. 

Gesner was a self-taught architect known for his playful, dramatic designs that reflect the freedom and joy of Southern California’s coastal landscape. His most famous house is the winged Wave House in Malibu, which he sketched while out on his longboard in the surf, across from where the house would eventually stand, according to The New York Times. 

Barrow Barlow and Morgan made some updates to the home in keeping with the original spirit, and converted it from a three-bedroom to a two-bedroom, leaving space for a library-office and a den with a writer’s nook. 

“We focused on restoring the house in a genuine sense to that of the period and to most importantly reflect Mr. Gesner’s dramatic optimism and the boldness of the era,” Barrow Barlow wrote in an email. 

On the interiors, the owners sought to bring the home into the “atomic age” while letting the original vision prevail, per Barrow Barlow. “For the art and furniture, we focused on an understated minimalism, while leaning more so into the space age, the atomic age—with glass, mirror and steel elements—along with mid-century furniture and colors which complemented.” 

Original touches include nautical elements such as a brass quarter windows from the early 1900s, three fireplaces, and extensive cabin-like paneling.

When the sellers purchased the home, they along with Belack went to visit Gesner, who passed away in 2022, at his home near the Wave House to discuss the boat house’s unique engineering—something that is part of Gesner’s unique style but is unlikely to pass muster with local regulations these days. 

“The problems of hillside design are only exceeded by their solutions,” Gesner once wrote. “No situation is impossible. The trick is to solve it in the most economical and attractive way possible.”

In addition to its design, what makes the home a rare find is that it has both architectural significance and enough space to accommodate modern living, said Belack, which isn’t usually the case. “For people who are looking for incredible pieces of architecture, the challenge is you can’t live in them because they’re from another era when people needed less space, and had less things,” he said. 

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That, and even in a town like Los Angeles, where views are par for the course, not many can match this one, per Belak.

“When you walk into a house with a massive view, the house lives way larger than its square feet,” he said. “The views are emotional; they take hold of you.”