Stahl House Cut by $5 Million Still Waits, and 11 More Houses Worth Staring At

Pierre Koenig's Stahl House has shed $5 million and still can't find a buyer. The Los Angeles midcentury landmark now sits at $20 million, according to Wallpaper*'s October 2026 roundup of the residential projects its editors loved this month, and the holdup is blunt arithmetic: two bedrooms across 2,200 square feet is remarkably modest for that price tag.

There's a catch, too. Building alterations are prohibited, and the ageing materials demand costly, labour-intensive maintenance. Whoever bites, the editors note, will be owning "a piece of America's architectural history." Presumably with the invoices to match.

What else is on the market?

Three more listings round out the month. The Eichler X-100 in Northern California, conceived by developer Joseph Eichler with architects A. Quincy Jones and Frederick Emmons, is seeking a new custodian. The steel-framed house, restored to its 1956 glory, packs interior gardens and Santa Cruz Mountain views into 2,310 square feet — a living laboratory for postwar modernism, originally designed as exactly that.

Sylvan Rock, the first private single residence designed with Aston Martin and S3 Architecture, stretches across a 55-acre Hudson Valley estate. Its blackened-cedar and faceted-metal roofline snakes around a rocky ledge; the compound includes a subterranean automotive gallery, three guest pods, an architect-designed treehouse and bespoke Aston Martin furnishings. The ask is $19.5 million.

In California's Faria Beach Colony, Carl Maston's 1984 Susman House has hit the open market for the first time, listed at $5.1 million. Cedar cladding, exposed brick fireplaces and 240-degree Pacific panoramas over the surf spot Mondo's Cove complete the late-modernist picture.

Which new builds made the cut?

The strangest is arguably the most rational. Architect Arshia Mahmoodi's Avocado House, perched above Yucca Valley in the Californian desert, translates three intersecting circles into a hillside sanctuary, with a central crescent courtyard forming its namesake "pit."

In Ahmedabad, India, studio FLXBL has completed Solidus, a residence carved by the progressive subtraction of a monolithic shuttered-concrete volume. Courtyards and terraces punch through at every level, bringing native vegetation inside; stone floors and a brick spine wall temper the monumental scale.

Melbourne's Casa Piva, by B.E. Architecture, serves as a serene cocoon for practice director Andrew Piva and his family. An austere white-brick façade in Malvern East hides courtyards and communal spaces layered with travertine, brick and antique oak joinery — a nod to the owners' Italian heritage.

Two London conversions also feature. Architecture for London reunited two divided flats into a single Victorian family house in Kentish Town, pairing restored period details with the clients' midcentury furniture and a Shaker-style kitchen anchored by reclaimed brick. In Brockley, Bolans Architects' Ceramic House wraps its rear extension in a green ceramic façade of arches, recesses and shifting planes, while reconfiguring the ground floor for a loft conversion.

Any houses from film and farther shores?

Yes. The lakeside retreat in Michael Showalter's thriller Verity was originally built in the 1960s by Danish designer Jens Quistgaard for Dansk's founders, jagged sawtooth roof intact. Production designer Amy Williams layered brutalist furnishings, custom woodwork and Dansk artefacts into what the editors call a menacing domestic stage.

In northeastern Thailand, HAS Design and Research's Khao Yai Mountain Grounded Villa wears a zig-zag roof echoing both mountain ridges and traditional shadow puppets. Natural ventilation and rainwater harvesting keep the open-plan house comfortable without air conditioning.

And on Ikaare Island in the Lagos lagoon, architect Tosin Oshinowo's four-bedroom OA House pairs sculptural matte off-white volumes with timber floors, a breezy pavilion living space and a pool deck framing the Atlantic.

The common thread across twelve projects on three continents: privacy, concrete geometry, and — for the listings at least — buyers who can afford to preserve what they're not allowed to change.