Wolf's Lair: Bud Wolf's Storybook Castle in Hollywoodland
Chief among the misconceptions about Wolf's Lair, the beautiful Loire-style castle on Durand Drive, is that its name has something to do with wolves; certainly the wolf's head placard on the front gate implies it. Nevertheless, Wolf's Lair was named not for the animal but the man who built it: Bud Wolf.
Wolf was a real estate developer; he also owned the Texaco station that stood on the site of Beachwood Market's parking lot. As lord and master of Wolf's Lair, he also may have been the archetypal early Hollywoodlander: an eccentric bon vivant. When not at home in his splendid turreted mansion with views of Lake Hollywood, the Hollywood Sign and the Observatory, Wolf enjoyed playing golf and driving his gull-wing Mercedes. He had a mistress named Diane. (His wife suffered from mental illness.) He employed the alcoholic former caretaker of the Hollywoodland Sign as a full-time handyman. He also kept an exotic pet: a gibbon whose howls ricocheted around the canyon. The gibbon lived in a tree during the day; at night he supposedly retired to a room in one of the turrets.
Wolf's Lair is notable not only as a fine example of the French château architecture that was the rage in Hollywood during the 1920's but as an example of mid-century architecture as well, as Wolf later commissioned a guest house by the architect John Lautner. Although the exterior resembles a plainer version of the main house, its interior is pure Lautner, with wood-beamed ceilings, stone pillars and lots of glass. The guest house is one of three commissions John Lautner designed in Beachwood Canyon, the most famous of which is the glass-fronted addition of Beachwood Market, built in 1952.
Wolf's Lair's western facade. Lautner's guest house is at left.
Beachwood Market's Lautner addition, at right.
Until I went up to Wolf's Lair the other day to take pictures of its neighbor, Castillo del Lago, I hadn't realized it too was for sale. (How long has it been since both lakeside mansions were on the market simultaneously?) Price:$4.695 million, for 3.3 acres, 8 bedrooms, six baths, a pool and gardens. And the most enormous stone walls imaginable, from granite quarried in Bronson Canyon. (Agent: Ernie Carswell, Teles Properties)
Even by the fairytale standards set by Hollywoodland's developers, Wolf's Lair's charm is exceptional. At once massive and delicate, it rises above Lake Hollywood like something out of a dream.
I am grateful to Harry Williams for biographical information about Bud Wolf.