Albert Van Dekker’s R.M. Schindler House Returns to Market After Landmark Restoration

One of the San Fernando Valley’s most important architectural homes is back on the market. The Van Dekker House, located in the hills of Woodland Hills south of Ventura Boulevard, is currently listed for $4.195 million.

Built in 1940, the three-level Modern residence was designed by master architect R.M. Schindler for actor Albert Van Dekker and his family. Van Dekker was known for roles in films including Dr. Cyclops, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Wild Bunch. The property is also recognized as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 974, making it one of the Valley’s protected architectural landmarks.

According to the listing, the home includes 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 3,756 square feet of living space on nearly half an acre. But the statistics only tell part of the story. The Van Dekker House is one of Schindler’s largest known residential works and contains many of his signature ideas: dramatic changes in ceiling height, clerestory windows, built-in furniture, geometric openings, wood detailing, stonework, patios, enclosed porches, and a constant relationship between indoor and outdoor space.

The home’s most recognizable feature is its asymmetrical copper-paneled roof, which gives the residence a sculptural quality unlike almost anything else in the Valley. The L.A. Conservancy notes that the Van Dekker House is the only known Schindler design with a copper roof, making the Woodland Hills landmark a true architectural one-off.

The house is also a major preservation success story. When the Van Dekker House came on the market more than a decade ago, it had suffered years of deferred maintenance and could easily have been viewed as a teardown. The property had deteriorated badly, with missing roof panels, water damage, aging systems, and boarded-up windows. Yet rather than being lost, the home found a careful steward in Frank Gamwell.

Gamwell, a longtime Valley resident and architecture enthusiast, purchased the house in 2013 and began a careful restoration. Ventura Blvd described the project as a transformation “from teardown to treasure,” noting that the home had no working water, air conditioning, heating, sewer, or usable electrical system when Gamwell first saw it. Still, he recognized the importance of the property and took on the challenge of saving it.

The Los Angeles Times later reported that Gamwell paid $700,000 for the house and invested hundreds of thousands more into restoration and improvements, including work on the copper roof, windows, infrastructure, and aging features. Gamwell also brought the home into the 21st century with green upgrades such as solar panels, a gray-water system, LED lighting, and a rooftop solar water heater.

The restoration did not erase the character of the house. Instead, it revived the Schindler details that made the residence significant in the first place. Original built-ins were restored, windows were repaired or replaced where needed, and the home’s architectural integrity was treated as the priority. Gamwell also added features such as an asymmetrical swimming pool, a new kitchen, a vegetable garden, and fruit trees while preserving the overall spirit of Schindler’s design.

This listing also brings the story full circle for the San Fernando Valley Blog. Back in 2013, this blog covered the Van Dekker House when it was listed for $799,000 and still needed major restoration work. At the time, the home had sold on December 31, 2013 for $700,000, with the hope that a restoration would follow. More than a decade later, that hope has been realized through Frank Gamwell’s careful ownership and rehabilitation of the property.

The home also has another layer of Hollywood history. After the Van Dekker family, the property was owned by novelist and screenwriter A.I. “Buzz” Bezzerides, who lived there for decades. Bezzerides was known for works including Kiss Me Deadly, The Long Haul, and Thieves’ Market.

For Woodland Hills, the Van Dekker House is a reminder that the San Fernando Valley is not just a place of ranch homes, postwar subdivisions, celebrity estates, and hillside retreats. It also contains some of Southern California’s most significant modern architecture. This property brings all of those stories together: Hollywood history, experimental design, Valley hillside living, and the importance of preservation.

What could have been lost as another teardown instead survived because of landmark protection, careful ownership, and a restoration that treated the house as more than real estate. The Van Dekker House remains one of the Valley’s great architectural treasures.