John Huston's Former L.A. Ranch Has a Miniature Disney Railroad, and It Just Listed for $20 Million
The charming abode, which is on the market for $20 million with David Kramer of Compass and Paul Czako of Gussman Czako Estates, was originally built in 1941 for Academy Award-winning actor-director John Huston. The late Hollywood legend, famous for The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, lived at the private estate back when the San Fernando Valley still had a Wild West vibe. He welcomed many big-name 'cowboys' into his digs, including famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
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The 4.44-acre estate offers more than just an A-list pedigree, though. In 1959, the gated compound was snapped up by Gordon and Holly MacLean, friends of Disney and die-hard train collectors, who added one truly unique feature. With Disney's input, the MacLeans built the Tunnel, Cut & Trestle Railroad: a 7.5-inch gauge track that allows a tiny train to wind through the grounds. The circuit includes bridges, turntables, road signs, and a 240-foot tunnel that is long enough to make you briefly forget you're in Los Angeles. The dual-track system is no toy—it's engineered to run steam, electric, and propane-powered engines, giving the new owner plenty of options for trains.
Over the years, the railroad has become a neighborhood legend, hosting community rides and drawing in fellow rail buffs from the L.A. Live Steamers Museum in Griffith Park. Each owner has kept the tradition alive—and yes, a mini-train is included in the sale.
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The rest of the estate is just as over-the-top. There's a 12,170-square-foot, three-story main house with six bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and nine fireplaces. A stone-lined pool flows partially under the house. A reimagined red barn—once a utilitarian structure, now an entertaining lodge—adds another 2,775 square feet, plus a kitchen, bar, bedroom, and loft. Toss in an 807-square-foot guest cottage, a nearly 2,000-square-foot train depot, and a storage wing, because why not? All up, eight bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and 11 fireplaces are spread across more than 17,000 square feet of living space.
Outside, the grounds feel like a private park, with koi ponds, stone paths, rolling lawns, a tennis court, a dog run, and a children's play area. You could hike up the hills, host a wedding, or fire up the steam engine for a spin around the trestle—whatever takes your fancy. The Tarzana compound is equal parts film set, fantasy camp, and legacy property, making it a great addition to any portfolio.Best of Robb Report
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Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Stephen King at the Oscars: Which movies based on his books have been nominated
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The film is written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who, like The Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont before him, was primarily known for horror movies before this (including adaptations of King's Gerald's Game and Doctor Sleep) but is now taking on an uplifting, decidedly non-horror King project. It's distributed by Neon, which also distributed reigning Best Picture winner Anora. The Life of Chuck isn't considered to be a strong Best Picture contender at this point, but it's in the race. More from GoldDerby 'Prizzi's Honor' at 40: How John and Angelica Huston made history together with his penultimate picture 'So indescribable and special': 'Happy's Place' stars Belissa Escobedo and Melissa Peterman on working with Reba McEntire Sam Rockwell on Frank's 'White Lotus' backstory, Woody Harrelson's influence, and going all in on 'this arc of Buddhist to Bad Lieutenant' As The Life of Chuck hits theaters, here's a look back at how Stephen King adaptations have fared at the Academy Awards. There have been five nominees and one winner. Could The Life of Chuck be the sixth? Without Carrie, none of this would have happened. Director Brian De Palma's adaptation of King's debut novel is one of the greatest and most important horror movies ever made, and it established King as a big screen draw. Carrie, which came out three years after The Exorcist became the first horror movie nominated for Best Picture, was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1976. 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After Carrie, it was a decade before a King film was nominated for an Academy Award again, and this time it wasn't for a horror movie. Director Rob Reiner's coming-of-age drama Stand by Me, based on King's 1982 novella The Body from the collection Different Seasons, earned one nomination at the 59th Academy Awards, for Bruce A. Evans and Raymond Gideon's screenplay. The era-defining film stars Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell as four boys in 1959 Oregon who go on a journey to find the body of a missing boy so they can report its location to the authorities. It turns into a journey of self-discovery, as their camaraderie helps give each other the confidence to become who they want to be. Stand by Me was a turning point for King adaptations, as it showed that his non-horror stories also had power — not only at the box office, but at the Oscars, too. To date, Misery is the only Stephen King adaptation to ever win an Oscar. 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43 minutes ago
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Anna D. Shapiro is stepping away from Steppenwolf for health reasons
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Elle
44 minutes ago
- Elle
Exclusive: Lauren Groff Reveals Her Next Book, the Short Story Collection ‘Brawler'
Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Seven years have passed since the three-time National Book Award-nominated author Lauren Groff last published a short story collection: the beloved, Story Prize-winning Florida. In the near-decade since, she has published two additional novels—Matrix and The Vaster Wilds—and opened The Lynx, a bookstore in Gainesville, Florida. She's served as a chair for the National Book Award for fiction and edited The Best American Short Stories anthology. Last year, she was named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People of the year. A letter from former President Obama hangs in her office. She reads hundreds of books a year and has provided many of her colleagues with glowing blurbs for those books. 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'As I'm writing, I don't have much control over which stories come to me with urgency,' Groff says. 'But I do have control over the selection of the stories and the way that they speak to one another. The first story offers questions that are then modified as the stories go on—they're shifted, they're moved, they're seen in a different light. And then the last story has possibly the hardest job, which is to take all the questions that have been asked throughout the story collection, and fragment them, right? I fragment them outward, and create a sense of backwards cohesion.' Brawler's assembled stories follow a mother and her children attempting to flee an abusive husband; a young woman newly responsible for her disabled sibling; a talented but angry swimmer awash in her parent's pain; a group of old classmates gathered to say goodbye to their dying friend; a stunted business scion yearning to make the woman he's fallen for 'presentable' to his family; and more. Each piece brushes up against, as Groff puts it, 'the violence that lurks within familial spaces,' which echo within the 'larger moments of cultural violence that I think we've been in for a very long time.' She continues, 'I was thinking about a lot of the hidden loves and the hidden costs of family—a lot of the secrets that we keep from one another.' The cover features the titular 'brawler' from Groff's story of the same name, first published in The New Yorker in 2019. 'Brawler' became the title of the collection after Groff's literary agent, Bill Clegg, suggested it. 'He was like, 'Of course you're going to call it Brawler,'' Groff says, laughing. 'And I don't know about you, but right now I feel like we need to fight. There's a lot of laser-like rage happening now, and so, of course, it would make sense to have a book called Brawler out.' Brawler's official artwork—designed by Jaya Miceli and featuring the swimmer in black-and-white, her reflection mirrored in an inky blue pool—was immediately Groff's favorite of the options Riverhead sent her. 'It was the one that I gasped when I saw it,' Groff says. 'I was a swimmer, and I have so much love for this girl. I love the way that her swim cap fades into the water, and the way that, if you turn the image upside down, it's a completely different book. It kind of takes your breath away.' As a writer, a bookseller, and the aforementioned literary citizen, Groff insists that the breathtaking nature of such art is, in fact, an issue she considers 'morally urgent.' That's what keeps her returning not only to her novels, but to the creation and curation of her short stories. 'There are times,' she says, 'that I feel unequal to the task of writing in this world because, with the gravity of everything that's going on, you can trick yourself into believing that it's not important, right? Or that it's not important enough to meet with your full soul, because there are people suffering.' To that idea, she responds with a quote from the William Carlos Williams poem 'Asphodel, That Greeny Flower': 'It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.' Groff continues, 'I do feel very deeply that loving attention to the soul—which is what art is—is just as important, if not more so, than constant attention to the news or to Bluesky or to Instagram. I'm not saying that an individual soul can heal the world,' she concludes. 'But I am saying that, if we collectively paid more attention to our own particular souls, possibly the world would be better than it is now.'Brawler is out from Riverhead Books on Feb. 24, 2026.
