A Spanish-style house on nearly an acre in the Studio City hills has come to market for $2,499,000. Believed to have been designed by Los Angeles architect Wilfred Tunstall, the home at 11400 Laurelcrest Drive combines white stucco walls, arched doorways and Valley views. The attribution rests on a tentative reading of its 1937 building permit.
A hillside property with character to investigate
The listing photographs show white stucco walls, tile roof details and an entrance hall with terracotta-colored flooring and a metal stair railing. Arched openings connect rooms with wood floors, while a broad grid of exposed wood crosses the living-room ceiling. The kitchen has yellow tile with blue trim; outside, decks overlook the Valley through mature trees.
Those details give the house plenty to examine on a visit. The photographs alone cannot establish which finishes belong to its first construction or which were added later.
The agents describe a street-to-street parcel and market the property for restoration or redevelopment. They identify it as an as-is probate sale without court confirmation. Any future building proposal would require its own verification; the marketing does not establish an approved project.
A possible Wilfred Tunstall design
The home is believed to have been designed by Wilfred Tunstall, based on a proposed reading of the handwritten architect entry on Los Angeles building permit 1937LA23455. Issued July 15, 1937, the permit authorized a new residence and garage at this address. The application lists two stories, eight rooms and an estimated construction value of $9,000.
The interpretation supplied for this article reads the architect entry as “Tunstall & Ellsworth,” with the second name crossed out and a notation beneath it possibly reading “Past.” That offers a lead for further research, but the handwriting and notation remain uncertain. A former partnership and its dissolution have not been independently documented, nor has the telephone number been matched to Tunstall in a period directory.
Wilfred Tunstall was a Los Angeles architect working in the relevant era. A notice in The Architect and Engineer, October 1928, page 109, records his architect's certificate granted that September and gives an address of 158 West 80th Street, Los Angeles. The AIA Historical Directory identifies him as Wilfred Tunstall (1903–1977), an AIA member from 1947 to 1953. These records support him as a candidate; they do not independently establish his authorship of this house.
A further residential-design lead appears in U.S. patent 2,522,149, “House planning means,” which names Wilfred Tunstall of Los Angeles. Filed July 21, 1945, and granted September 12, 1950, it describes a model-making system using slotted blocks and folded paper or cardboard to try different arrangements of walls, doors, windows and furnishings. The matching name and city make it a promising biographical lead, though an independent link to the architect remains to be established. The newspaper notices below add specific property connections, although they do not explicitly establish architectural design credits.
The listing reports 1938 as the year built. The July 1937 permit documents authorization to begin construction, rather than a completion date. The architect attribution remains provisional pending a clearer name, signature, address or telephone match.
More USC Case Study history on Laurelcrest
Laurelcrest has appeared on this blog before, including our 2012 coverage of 11528 Laurelcrest Drive, a USC Case Study house designed by Chapman and McCorkell. The street also returned to our coverage this week: on October 20, we featured another USC Case Study home by Chapman and McCorkell at 11526 Laurelcrest Drive, newly listed for $2.38 million. That post describes it as one of five houses built as a USC Case Study project.
Those post-and-beam homes add another chapter to the street's architectural history alongside the Spanish-style residence at 11400 Laurelcrest. They are separate properties with different design histories.
See the current listing for sale information, and browse more local coverage in Development & Architecture.
Listing photo gallery
Listing images: CRMLS SR26225208 via Redfin; George Ouzounian and Gina Michelle, The Agency. The final image is the listing’s aerial parcel illustration.
Wilfred Tunstall: newspaper clipping gallery
The supplied clippings broaden the picture of Tunstall’s work. A 1933 permit notice names him as owner of a residence at 168 West 80th Street; a 1938 notice identifies him as owner and builder of a dwelling at 212 West 83rd Street. A 1953 notice also names him as owner of a duplex at 121–123 Manhattan Avenue. These are useful leads for tracing his residential projects, with ownership and construction roles distinguished from a confirmed design credit.
The clearest career detail appears in the December 21, 1956, Los Angeles Evening Citizen News: Tunstall was a senior architect in the Bureau of Public Buildings, and the City Council commended him before his February retirement after 31 years of city service. Other clippings cover his 1938 marriage and later property activity in Hermosa Beach.
Past owners and residents: newspaper clipping gallery
The address also appears in wartime and neighborhood reporting. In April 1943, the Los Angeles Examiner listed Corporal Donald E. Sellenberger as a prisoner of war and gave his father Horace’s address as 11400 Laurelcrest Drive. An October 1945 Los Angeles Times notice listed Corporal Donald Sollenberger at the same address among liberated prisoners; the two papers spell the surname differently.
In October 1962, the Times interviewed 19-year-old Valley College student Grant Harris about the Cuban missile crisis, listing his address as 11400 Laurelcrest Road. These clippings document people associated with the address; they do not establish a chain of property ownership.
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