LAist: LAistory: All That's Left is the Story

Bradywestwater

Sat, 17 May 2008 21:19:30 -0800

It was going to be subdivided into several smaller single family lots. It was never going to be an apartment house since the zoning would never allow that.

Jacy Young

Sat, 17 May 2008 15:47:17 -0800

Awesome! Next time I'm just going to post suggestive bits and let you guys do the work!

PinLA

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:52:58 -0800

NYTimes Obit - Published: January 5, 2003 - "Mohammed al-Fassi, 50; Upset Beverly Hills Over House Mohammed al-Fassi, an in-law of the Saudi royal family who won fame by turning a Beverly Hills mansion into an eyesore, died on Dec. 24 in Cairo. He was 50. His death was reported this week in Los Angeles by Marvin M. Mitchelson, the divorce lawyer representing one of his wives, Sheika Dena al-Fassi. Mr. Mitchelson said the cause was an infected hernia. Mohammed al-Fassi, at times referred to as Prince al-Fassi, was born in Morocco. His father, a merchant, took him to Saudi Arabia when he was 10. His sister married a brother of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In 1978, he paid $2.4 million in cash for a 38-room white-stucco mansion on Sunset Boulevard and scandalized a staid neighborhood by painting it pea green and covering its Italianate outdoor statuary in ''natural'' colors, genitals and all. Two years later, the villa was gutted by fire. Four grown children survive."

PinLA

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:50:35 -0800

"A 36,000-square-foot mansion with a guardhouse in its front yard and a stone bridge over a lake is under construction on the site of Beverly Hills co-founder Max Whittier's former estate. In the 1970s, the estate belonged to Saudi Sheikh Mohammed al Fassi. The sheikh caused a neighborhood uproar by painting the white plaster statues of nudes on the front veranda in natural skin and hair tones. He put plastic flowers in urns and painted the house lime green. The French Country-style chateau, being built on Sunset Boulevard two blocks east of the Beverly Hills Hotel, will have a limestone exterior and a gray slate roof but no outdoor statues, said designer-developer Frank Valentino of Beverly Hills' Park Lane Design Group. The sheikh's house, on 3.6 acres, was gutted by fire in 1980 and razed in 1985. The land was subdivided and sold. The house under way is on 1.5 acres, and Valentino estimates it to be a $25 million project. "

LA MapNerd

Sat, 17 May 2008 11:15:07 -0800

Sheikh Mohammmed Al-Fassi's painting of the statues in Beverly Hills was a fascinating case of cross-cultural misundertanding. Al-Fassi came from a culture that discourages figural art - portrayals of living beings - as a gateway to idolatry, so he was not deeply familiar with the traditions of classical Western sculpture. So he did some research, and discovered that the statues of classical Greece and Rome were originally painted in lifelike colors - the pristine white marble of museum pieces is the result of the original paint wearing off over the centuries. Since the statues were meant to be contemporary decoration, not preserved museum pieces, he assumed that the culturally respectful thing to do would be to have them painted in lifelike colors, just as the statues of antiquity had originally been painted. After all, in an upscale neighborhood like Beverly Hills, no one wants the neighboring homes looking like dilapidated ruins, right? He was actually rather surprised by all the uproar and outrage, since he had mistakenly assumed that Westerners would be more aware of their own cultural heritage.