Disney's Castle: 4053 Woking Way

For those of you who have been following this blog, you know that I have been somehow bringing up celebrities and then denying that I'm starstruck. While that is true, something very strange has been happening....

Several events in my life have been on a collision course, and I didn't even realize it. With our purchase of a new home and remodeling, I have been extremely interested in homes for the last few years. Second, it has recently occurred to me that we have lived in Southern California for over 15 years and not once have we toured Hollywood or the surrounding area - shoot the only time we go to LA is when passing through it on our way to other places! And third, we went to California Adventure for Christmas.

When we arrived back home, I was perusing Zillow as I usually do when something I read attracted me to Santa Monica. I became fascinated with the area and spent hours looking over the streets and homes, for some reason focusing on Amalfi Drive. It really sparked my interest (more on that street in future posts). At about the same time, I stumbled across information about Walt Disney's homes and started looking them up on Zillow. BAM! I had a new hobby - looking up homes of famous people in Zillow! So even though I am a few weeks into this new hobby, I will back up to where it started: Walt's home from 1932 until 1949: 4053 Woking Way in Los Angeles.

Walt and Lillian Disney built this 4 BR, 5 BA 6,388 sf home on almost 5 acres in the spring and summer of 1932. The architecture from the outside is beautiful, and I can really see Walt living here on this windy, wooded street. Great pick Walt! He built this home in a new area of the Los Feliz Hills, and it was the second home they'd had built for them.

What I will attempt to do over the next few weeks is to examine the homes of some of the more prominent residents of the LA basin, in an attempt to start collecting places that my wife and I might go on a driving tour of Hollywood and vicinity. Here we go!

If you'd like to follow along, simply grab the address, paste it into Zillow and go to the bird's eye view...it gives you a great perspective on what the area is really like. Or simply click on the picture in each post - I'll try and pick the best view to share with you. I love the internet!

(In case you can't tell, I've been ill and stuck at home trying to minimize physical activity. That's why there have been so many posts lately)

Addition on 7/28/08: I found this great post about a 1940 article about this home: http://afilmla.blogspot.com/2008/05/home-and-garden-of-walt-disney.html