A Hilltop Gem in Old L.A.’s Image

Julius Shulman’s 1960 photograph of Case Study House No. 22 has been described as the single image that conveys the allure of postwar Los Angeles. In the famous photo, two young women sit inside a steel and glass box, balanced on the edge of a Hollywood hilltop. Below them, the sprawling, twinkling City of Angels seems an oasis of hope.

The house, designed by early L.A. Modernist architect Pierre Koenig, is rarely open to the public. But on Saturday, the MAK Center for Art and Architecture hosted a cocktail party in the idyllic spot.

Framed by the clean lines of the patio and back-lit by city lights, everyone and everything at the party looked photo-worthy. Even a discarded cocktail napkin and shrimp tail made a nice still life, with the rectangular pool in the background.

In the living room, the powerful Santa Anas rattled the glass walls and the idealistic image of Los Angeles. I spotted Shulman, 90, with a cane in his gnarled hand, sitting in the same spot as one of the female subjects in his famous photo.

Koenig, in his 70s with a shock of gray hair, worked the room.

“I wonder if I could get him to do my house,” one woman said with a chardonnay smile.

Buck and Carlotta Stahl have lived in the hilltop gem since it was built in 1959. “You never take the view for granted,” said Carlotta Stahl, a Barbara Bush look-alike who has fended off countless offers for the house. “My kids love this place and they intend to hold on to it.”

Her three children are grown, and Stahl has happy memories of them in the house.

When her kids played on the bluff below the patio, she sent them off with sandwiches. “They called it ‘going on safari,’ ” she said.

At the party, amateur shutterbugs swarmed the property, hoping for their own images of the glass and steel palace. Using my disposable camera, I snapped Shulman, the patio and the lights below.

But as hard as we tried, I’m certain none of us could compete with Shulman’s photograph and all it represented. Los Angeles could never look that good again.

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Dancing the Charleston in the rafters of the Farmers hand Merchants Bank Building clad only in a tinfoil dress and socks, performance artist Ryan Hill looked eerily like a banker gone cuckoo after the 1929 stock market crash.

It was the perfect scene-setter for the Prohibition-themed fund-raiser for the nonprofit arts organization Side Street Projects.

The building, at 4th and Main streets in Los Angeles, housed one of the city’s dominant financial institutions in the early 20th century. It is now owned by urban renaissance man Tom Gilmore.

Guests at the speak-easy soiree sipped bathtub gin and took flashlight tours of the spooky basement vaults.

An offbeat cast of entertainers included Jackie Apple and her “pimp,” Ulysses Jenkins, selling minute-long ear-strokes for $5. (Blows were $10; licks, $15.)

“Indulge in a little aural pleasure,” teased Apple, her reddish bob well-suited to her name.

Apple described her aural act as “a satire of whoring in the art world. . . . In the art world, if you want to make money, you have to prostitute yourself.”

So why was Apple selling her services? To raise money for a festival of music and sound planned for May, titled Ear Jam, of course.

Booth Moore can be reached at booth.moore@latimes.com.