THE CURTIZ GUEST HOUSE
Article from the L.A. Times
Los Angeles Times Sunday November 12, 1995 Home Edition Real Estate, Page 1 Type of Material: Column
JODIE FOSTER, who directed and produced the just-opened "Home for the Holidays," has put her Woodland Hills house on the market at $1.1 million.
The Oscar-winning actress ("The Accused," 1988; "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991) decided to sell the house, "because she doesn't want to live in the Valley anymore," though she plans to stay in the L.A. area, a source said.
Foster, who turns 33 next Sunday, made her directorial debut with "Little Man Tate" in 1991. In 1992 she formed a production deal with Polygram Filmed Entertainment to finance three films under her Egg Pictures banner. Her first film was "Nell" (1994), in which she played a backwoods hermit. She directs but doesn't act in her second film, "Home for the Holidays," featuring Holly Hunter.
The Woodland Hills home, which Foster has owned for six years, was built in 1934 as the guest house of a large estate owned by Hungarian director Michael Curtiz, who was brought to Hollywood by Jack Warner in 1926.
Curtiz directed a series of Errol Flynn swashbucklers, including "Captain Blood" (1935), as well as such classics as "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) and "Casablanca" (1943), for which he won an Oscar. He died in 1962.
Copied from a Cottswald cottage, Foster's house has one bedroom with a second bedroom over the garage. The home is on half an acre behind gates.
Foster restored the house and added imported glass mosaic tiles from Italy in the master bath and 22-karat gold leaf detailing on the ceilings in the master bedroom.