In his first substantial project, Casa Encantada, T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings sought to create the vocabulary of timeless classicm. It quickly brought him recognition that, in the words of a Life magazine writer, he was seeking “to define a singularly American style.” A milestone of his early career, this 43-room mansion was created for socialite Hilda Boldt Weber on a hill overlooking Los Angeles in Bel-Air, California. The most ambitious architectural commission of Russian-born Beverly Hills architect James E. Dolena, it was designed and built between 1936 and 1940 and soon became a Hollywood icon, often figuring in press accounts as the palatial backdrop for the social elite of Los Angeles. |