A few years ago, the couple briefly considered moving. The house originally only had two bedrooms, and after welcoming their third child, they wondered if they’d outgrown the space. For months, Schwartzman and Cunningham looked at dozens and dozens of houses across Los Angeles. But every time, they came to the same conclusion: “We didn’t want to leave,” says Cunningham.
That was partly due to its architectural pedigree: mid-century modern houses are in hot demand in L.A. (“It’s really hard to find beautiful homes like this on this market,” Cunningham says.) But most of all, it’s the emotional ties that have kept them here.
It was 2008 when a newly-engaged Schwartzman and Cunningham decided to move from New York to Los Angeles. They’d been living in a tiny 600-foot square foot apartment. One night, after taking a long transcontinental flight, they ascended Laurel Canyon Boulevard and into the Santa Monica Mountains with a real estate agent to visit the house for the first time. “We could see these really tall windows illuminated, and it had this unmistakable charm,” says Cunningham. “It was so exciting that maybe we could afford something like this.”