Schindler's 1926 Lovell Beach House Lists for $18.8 Million

RM Schindler's Lovell Beach House is for sale at $18.8 million — the first time the Newport Beach property has traded since it was completed in 1926. The Lovell family has owned the glass-and-concrete house for a century. Now, after the death of the last resident, Barbara Lovell, daughter-in-law of the original clients, they're letting it go.

The listing is co-handled by Nate Cole of Modern California House and Todd Bousman of Bouhaus Properties. The address is 1242 West Ocean Front, Newport Beach, California — the last building plot before the beach.

Who built it, and why does it matter?

Schindler (1887–1953) designed the house for Leah and Philip Lovell exactly a hundred years ago. Richard Neutra, no less, drew up the landscaping. Schindler had trained in Vienna under Adolf Loos and Otto Wagner, arrived in the US in 1914, and worked with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Hollyhock House — finished in 1921 for heiress Aline Barnsdall and still open to the public today.

The connection was domestic rather than professional: both Schindler's and Lovell's wives taught at the same progressive kindergarten in East Hollywood, on Barnsdall's land. Schindler later fell out spectacularly with Wright, and his relationship with Neutra was fractious. Fortuitous timing did the rest.

Philip Lovell wrote a Los Angeles Times column called 'Care of the Body'. He was a naturopathic health advocate, a vegetarian, and, in the source's phrasing, "a fanatic advocate of naturist sunbathing and avocados, although not necessarily at the same time". The prototypical modern Californian, in short. Leah Press-Lovell shared the enthusiasms; the couple met through her work at the progressive school.

What did the concrete make possible?

The house sits on five angular reinforced-concrete pillars — still a novel material for private residences in 1926 — that raise it high off the plot. That lift bought two things: spectacular ocean views from the terrace, and thin structure that could carry ribbons of glazing around a double-height living space at the heart of the 2,741 sq ft plan.

The layout, as originally conceived:

• Ground floor: a garage and open area between the pillars, with twin staircases off a central plinth (now converted to additional accommodation)
• First floor: double-height living room, dining area, kitchen and breakfast area
• Upper floor: four identical bedrooms off a galleried landing, plus a private roof deck

The first floor had sleeping porches that opened to the Pacific air, with floor-to-ceiling glazing. The chilly Pacific fogs won that argument. The balconies were enclosed by the end of the decade.

Neutra's contribution survives too: a modest landscape plan with a curvaceous raised flower bed and semi-naturalistic planting, overlooked by a balcony reached from the sitting room, with the beach and ocean beyond.

Why sell now?

Barbara Lovell died in 2025. The house had served as the focal point for a century of family gatherings and celebrations, and changes over the decades were sparse and sympathetic — almost all of Schindler's original built-in furniture stays with the property.

There's a postscript with teeth. The Lovells went on to commission Neutra for the Lovell Health House, completed in 1929, and it was that building which won the architectural press's attention. The family, unmoved, chose to spend more time at the beach.

The market for such trophies is not automatic. The Stahl House — Craig Ellwood's Case Study House #22 — has struggled to sell, another slice of American architectural history that comes with caveats as well as kudos. Whoever pays $18.8 million here takes on a century-old monument, in a prominent spot, and the expectations that come with both.