Pic credit: AD
For three years, Ashley Benson poured time and effort into making her Los Feliz house her own. And then she sold it. Now, the carefully curated home belongs to someone else. In 2020, the Pretty Little Liars alum bought the 1930 Spanish Revival home in Laughlin Park, a guard-gated community in Los Feliz, for $4.5 million, and then sold it in 2023 for $8.5 million.
The asking price was $9.5 million, according to Robb Report, and yet $4 million is a healthy return on an extensive remodel.
A 1930s Spanish home
The house sits on a cul-de-sac inside a gated community. It spans 4,825 square feet, with four bedrooms and five bathrooms. The 1930s Los Feliz residence was designed by Arthur Rowland Kelly, who also designed the Playboy Mansion. Ashley Benson was the third owner. For her, it wasn’t really love at first sight.
“It was very old, and I really had to be open-minded [about] the potential,” the actor told Architectural Digest earlier.
However, she was drawn to the Spanish-style home. “The outside felt like I was in Barcelona, or somewhere in Europe. And if I [did the work], I knew I would fall in love with it.”Benson purchased the house in 2020 and went for a thorough remodel before moving in. Her friend, interior designer Nicole Gordon, and architect John Farrace were in charge of the renovation.
“She really wanted to respect the architecture and the integrity of the house. I think we both felt it was really special that she was [only] the third owner and that there hadn’t been a lot of bad additions,” Gordon told the publication.
Benson wanted to preserve some of the original details. “The bones and all the interior architecture were amazing,” Gordon added.But she also made some personal changes. The kitchen cabinets are green, borrowing from the colour palette of the Polo Bar, the Ralph Lauren restaurant.
The dining room is painted black from floor to ceiling and furnished in black to match. The primary bedroom has a dry bar stocked with whiskey. Benson has said it made her feel like she was staying in a hotel somewhere far away. Open one drawer, though, and the mystery is solved: it is mostly candy.
The house also holds a speakeasy and a hair salon, two features that reflect her taste more than any resale instinct. Neither is the kind of addition most buyers would expect in a 1930s home, but they fit the house she wanted to live in.
She sold the home after three years
In 2020, Benson paid $4.5 million for the house. Three years later, in July 2023, the property hit the market with an asking price of $9.49 million. Within a couple of weeks, the house sold for $8.5 million. This was below the original asking price but $4 million above what she paid. This gap is crucial. A sale price that far above the purchase price, after a three-year hold, represents a significant gain on any property.
For the listing agents, this was a relatively easy sale. Along with the celebrity presence, the listing pitched the property as a blend of original charm and modern updates. The 360-degree views over Downtown Los Angeles, Griffith Park and the Observatory were among the other highlights.