Friday, June 20, 2014

Hollywood Home Tour - Clark Gable

"Here we come to one of the most famous of movie star homes - the ranch shared by Clark Gable and his wife Carole Lombard from 1939 -1942.... 


4525 Petitt Street, Encino

"The spacious nine-room white brick and wood ranch was nicknamed "The House of Two Gables" when the couple moved in. While Gable was off making Gone With the Wind, Lombard had the interior completely re-done in a beautiful Early American style, renovating two of the first-floor bedrooms into an office for Gable and a room to showcase his ever-growing firearm collection. Outside on the grounds were citrus groves, fields of oats and alfalfa, stables, a hen house, cow barn, and a pig-less pigsty. I'll pull up to the curb here, so you folks can get a better look at the place."

"Did Gable actually farm the property?" 

"Yes, he really did enjoy being on the ranch and especially loved to give reporters the grand tour of his mini-farm - it was 20 acres - often posing for photos on his tractor or milking cows for them. It was a peaceful respite away from the hustle of Hollywood for him"

"The house was the former residence of director Raoul Walsh. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard had previously visited the home and were admirers of the property, so when they got wind that it was up for sale in the fall of 1938, Carole put up $50,000 to purchase it. In March of 1939 the couple were married and moved in shortly after...however, this was only to be a temporary residence. The lovebirds were planning on starting a cattle ranch and were looking to purchase a large piece of land either in Arizona or Wyoming. Carole Lombard's death in an airplane crash put an abrupt end to their dream plans and, brokenhearted, Gable put the Encino ranch up for sale, not bearing to stay there any longer. A good friend of his, Al Menseco, convinced him to change his mind and while Gable was fighting overseas during WWII, he had the ranch kept running by a few house servants and a caretaker. After the war, the King again put it up on the market and pulled it off shortly thereafter. Gable currently lives on the ranch with his fifth wife, Kay Spreckles Gable. "

Up-to-date Note : In 1973, his wife Kay sold the ranch and it was subdivided into a housing development called Gable estates. Today, the house still stands although it sits on less than an acre of property. Click here to view images of the interior of the home at this great Carole Lombard website.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, what a house and property! That is lovely.

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    1. It certainly is lovely, but it's sad that so many of these "country homes" are now thickly surrounded by cities. People are paying millions for former movie star homes ( like James Stewart's house ) and then tearing them down just so they can builder a grander home - or subdivide them into several lots - on the same property. I wish we could take a time machine into the past just to see what Beverly Hills looked like in the 1940s.

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    2. I lived next door to the gables for 10 years on approx the same amount of land. If I remember correctly, both gable’s property and ours were once one parcel, approximately 40 acres.
      I was born in 1938. Once I knew who he was ( carol died before I realized who she was,) I was always hoping I would see him more. There were a few times I do remember seeing him driving by our front gate and on his property , and one painful encounter. Milton berry

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  2. Please continue this great work and I look forward to more of your awesome blog posts.
    Buying Selling Homes 

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