Pulling up the driveway, it seems as though you’ve taken the wrong turn, the gravel road edging towards a structure obscured by thickets of barbed shrub and overgrown crowns of leaves. A broken picket fence tinted a rust red enters your view first before the rest of the house, if it can be called so, swings into your vision. At a glance, the dirt yellow walls and moldy ceiling appear on the verge of collapse, mildew adding tinges of green to the steep cedar shingle roof. Shuttered windows of cracked glass seem to be the only sources of illumination in this witch’s cottage and with the echo of a witch’s cackle in your ears, you notice the eerie metal cobweb splayed across the front door.

Believe it or not, the ramshackle look is all a façade, purposefully kept up by the Spadena House’s soul owner and resident, Michael B. Lisbow. Although the set was originally built for the silent films that were all the rage in the 20s, it only every featured in a grand total of 2 films and somewhere down the winding road to Oz, became a residential unit in Beverly Hills. The house was refurnished with an eclectic array of ornaments and varnishes which retained the Bavarian Witch’s House aesthetic while being decked out in modern amenities. Trolls of make believe hide beneath the wooden bridge to the house that leaps over a moat floored in shimmering ocean blue ceramic glass tiles. The houses interiors feature more tiled mosaics in whimsical designs and gnarled branches running through the entire structure as supports with not a single right angle in sight. A structure melded with the elements of nature around it, this organic form of building takes its cues from the works of Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona. The cherry atop the cake of over-the-top residences, you would definitely be dropping down the rabbit hole at the Spadena House of Los Angeles.