The Peculiar Charms of the Frank Zappa Estate | LUNO

The Frank Zappa Estate is a window into the thinking of a music legend. Back in August 2016, the 7,000 square-foot, 1930s Tudor-like, Hollywood Hills estate, was sold for $5.25 million USD after being on the market for only about two months. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame posthumous inductee (1995) bought the property for $74,000 in the 1960’s. The property has seven bedrooms, including a master suite with a fireplace, six bathrooms, several guestrooms, a library, a formal dining room, a kitchen with cathedral ceilings, a rooftop tennis court, a formal dining room, a large backyard swimming pool and spa, a stone courtyard, two guest cottages, one guest apartment, and a climate-controlled private vault in the basement where Zappa kept personal archives of recordings. It’s far from a tiny house!

Within this house is Zappa’s luxury home recording studio called “Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.” As an experimental rock artist, Zappa composed most of his music here, creating complex merges of classical music, blues, jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll. Most of Zappa’s 60 albums were composed at his estate, with 40 more albums released after his death in 1993.

From the décor of the house, it is a place of many peculiar charms. You can see Zappa’s unconventional, individualistic style all over the place. There are quirky elements like submarine doors, ornaments on interior door frames, a tub with a blue exterior, handrails with branch-like balusters, images of snakes on walls, colorful abstract shapes superimposed on herringbone flooring, and mermaid caryatids on dining room door frames. Basically, a mix and blend of styles just like his music. That is why the house is similar to a 1930s Tudor, but not quite.

Oh, and who bought the Frank Zappa Estate for $5.25 million USD? None other than the experimental, non-conformist pop superstar, Lady Gaga.