Guitarist Ry Cooder has purchased a nearly 100-year-old Altadena, Calif., home designed by Wallace Neff for $2.5 million.
According to the listing, which was held by John Moreno and Daniel Villareal of Compass, the house was built in 1927 and is a “breath-taking” example of the California style of architecture that Neff helped pioneer by combining Mediterranean and Spanish influences. The home “evokes the romanticism and passion of early California architecture and offers a unique opportunity to own an architecturally significant work of art” and, prior to Cooder’s purchase, had been owned by the same family for 60 years.
The property contains four bedrooms and five bathrooms across 3,128 square feet, with a patio accessible from both the living and dining rooms. The backyard is noted by a level of landscaping that the listing calls a “private sanctuary” and a pool. An award-winning midcentury modern guest house, built in 1959, adds an extra bedroom, two bathrooms, living room with a fireplace and a kitchen.
Cooder first turned heads as a member of Captain Beefheart‘s Magic Band and gained greater prominence as a session musician, perhaps most notably with the blistering slide part on the Rolling Stones‘ “Sister Morphine.” He’s spent his solo career composing film scores and following his muse around the world, recording everything from Tex-Mex to gospel to a collaboration with Malian legend Ali Farka Toure. In the late ’90s, he helped spark the re-interest in Afro-Cuban music in the late ’90s with his Grammy-winning work on the Buena Vista Social Club movie.
