California Homeowners on This Street Cannot Paint Their Walls Without Government Permission

He paid $16 million for a house and cannot decide what it looks like from the street.

That is not a lease. That is not an HOA. That is a government designation, and it follows the property forever.

This is the reality on La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica, California, where owning a home and controlling a home are two very different things.

The Street That Time Is Not Allowed to Change

La Mesa Drive is eight blocks of curved, tree-lined road in the heart of Santa Monica. Century-old Moreton Bay fig trees run the length of it, their roots cracking through the sidewalks.

The homes date mostly from the 1920s and 1930s, designed by architects whose names still appear in textbooks.

Four of the roughly 60 homes on the street carry official landmark designations. Architects like Paul R. Williams, Oscar Niemeyer, Lloyd Wright, and J.R. Davidson all left their mark here. Over the years, Mel Brooks and Julie Andrews called this street home.

It is, by any measure, a remarkable place to live. And for some owners, a remarkably complicated one.

When Owning a Home Does Not Mean Controlling It

Trial attorney Otto Haselhoff bought his home at 2009 La Mesa Drive in 2018 for $16 million. The property, a circa-1926 English Tudor designed by architect Elmer Grey, was the longtime home of actress Kathryn Grayson, who lived there until her death in 2010.

The home carries a city landmark designation. That means any change to the facade requires review and approval from Santa Monica’s Landmarks Commission.

The back of the property, hidden from the street, is not landmarked, which is why a prior owner was able to build a cantilevered backyard over the golf course below, held up by concrete caissons drilled into bedrock.

Haselhoff wanted more freedom than that. In 2019, he sued the city to remove the landmark designation entirely. He lost. He appealed. He petitioned the California Supreme Court. It declined to hear the case in 2024.

Standing in his kitchen, he put it plainly: “Is it your property if you can’t change it?”

As reported by Realtor.com, strict preservation rules govern how much homes on La Mesa Drive can change, and the tension between ownership and restriction has become one of the defining debates on the street.

What These Rules Actually Restrict

The landmark designation applies to what the home looks like from the street. Interior changes are generally not restricted.

But any exterior alteration, any facade update, any structural change visible from the road requires a Certificate of Appropriateness from the city before a building permit is even issued.

That process takes time. It costs money. It is subjective.

Haselhoff said it took about a year to get approval to rebuild the pool and update the interior after he bought the home. “Anything you want to do requires approval,” he said. “There are constant questions.”

Designer Jill Wickert, who bought the street’s only Oscar Niemeyer-designed home for $11.295 million, describes a different experience with the same rules.

She hired architecture firm Marmol Radziner for a careful restoration. “Somewhere in the purchasing process it dawned on me that there’s a responsibility attached to this house,” she said.

Two owners, same rules, two completely different feelings about them.

It is not just La Mesa. Across California, celebrity-owned properties sit in a similar tension between what owners want and what they are permitted to do.

Aubrey Plaza has been trying to sell her gated LA compound after dropping the price by $1.2 million, and even that has not been enough to move it in a market where buyers increasingly want full control over what they own.

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Why This Matters

La Mesa Drive is a concentrated example of a tension playing out across California and across the country. Historic preservation protects what a neighborhood was. But it also restricts what the people living there now are allowed to do.

And the financial stakes are real.

According to data analyzed by HAR.com drawing on a 2007 study by Jonathan Mabry for Tucson’s historic preservation office, home values in historic districts rose 5% to 35% per decade more than comparable undesignated neighborhoods.

The record sale on La Mesa Drive was $29.35 million in 2020. In December, OneRepublic frontman Ryan Tedder paid $22.95 million for a newly built home on the same street.

Jeremiah Eden of Sotheby’s International Realty, who has handled multiple deals on La Mesa, makes a counterintuitive argument: “These restrictions increase property values.”

But the homes fetching the highest prices in recent years have been the ones without historic designations, according to people familiar with the market. The flexibility to renovate freely is worth something. And for some buyers at this price point, it is worth more than the history.

Alan Hess, an architect and preservation advocate, warns of what happens without these protections. “We have lost quite a number of excellent houses,” he said. “Southern California has many architecturally significant homes, but they are in danger of being destroyed.”

Celebrity buyers are learning this the hard way. Justin Bieber picked up a $12 million NYC condo with Hudson River views in a building that comes with its own set of restrictions on what residents can modify.

Even at that price, what you own and what you can do with it are two separate conversations. And Brad Pitt moved in with Ines de Ramon after his home was burglarized, a reminder that even trophy properties carry vulnerabilities their owners never fully anticipate.

Key Takeaways

• La Mesa Drive in Santa Monica has 4 officially landmarked homes out of roughly 60 on the street
• Landmark designation means any exterior change visible from the street requires city approval before work begins
• Otto Haselhoff sued the city in 2019 to remove his landmark designation and lost at every court level through 2024
• The street record stands at $29.35 million, set in 2020 for a circa-1925 home
• Homes without historic designations have recently commanded some of the highest prices, partly because they offer renovation flexibility
• Data shows historic districts nationally see home value appreciation of 5% to 35% per decade more than undesignated areas

Should a government have the right to tell you what your own house has to look like from the street, even after you have paid millions for it? Or is that the price of living on a street worth preserving? Drop your take in the comments below.

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Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. All details are based on publicly available reports at the time of publication.