The Villa Sophia Los Angeles CA review
Los Angeles, CA
Magnificent and historic Old Hollywood Estate with an Italian Villa aesthetic in the Los Feliz Hills.
Guest House is a nightly ($395/night) rental for those of you coming in from out of town. Guest House was named LA Weekly’s “The Best Place to Pretend You’re a Celebrity for a Day” in Los Angeles. “The Villa Sophia” can be used as a hotel, restaurant, cafe or mansion for purposes of filming.
Home of English film director James Whale during the making of his four classic films:
- Frankenstein (1931);
- The Old Dark House (1932);
- The Invisible Man (1933); and
- Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Director Whale was the subject of the 1998 Academy Award winning film ‘Gods and Monsters”.
A 200 year line of English literary, theater and film history runs through “Historic Old Hollywood Tuscan Villa”. The classic and definitive monster/horror film of all time, director James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931), the screen version of Mary Shelley’s Gothic 1818 nightmarish novel of the same name was made while director Whale was living at the Villa.
Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818 at the age of 21. The idea of the legendary novel was conceived of when she was only 18 years old and in the company of friends and major English literary figures Percy Shelley (her later husband), Lord Byron and John Polidori (credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction). Director James Whale’s revolutionary film interpretation of Shelley’s Frankenstein, arguably the most iconic horror film in history, was followed by his own “Bride of Frankenstein”, one of the few sequels to a great film which is considered even better than the original film on which it is based. Both films were conceived of and made by Whale while living at the Villa.
The dreamy 1998 film “Gods and Monsters”, based on a novel originally titled “Father of Frankenstein”, is a daring biographical interpretation of the inner life and imaginings of Whale at the end of his life. English actor Sir Ian Mckellan as James Whale, circa 1957, in vivid dream sequences, recounts haunting memories of various events in his life including an entertaining account of his glamorous life in Hollywood during the 1930’s and reconstructions of the filming of Bride of Frankenstein. Both McKellan and Lynn Redgrave, of the English acting dynasty, received Oscar nominations for their work on the film.
Whale disliked being identified with horror films only. His personal favorite film Remember Last Night (1935), “a tale of bright young things drinking and partying fast enough to keep despair at bay” is a reminder that Whale belonged to the same “Lost Generation” of artists formed by World War I who produced works of art with a similar theme such as Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. James Whale retired from making films in 1941.
The Villa Sophia is located on a hilltop at the edge of 4300 acre Griffith Park with views of city, ocean, mountains and the Griffith Observatory was designed by noted architect Henry Harwood Hewitt in 1925. Extensive lush gardens with both tropical and Italian influences. Terraces on three levels for dramatic filming effects. Location for many film and photography shoots.
