Producers behind The Virgin Suicides & American Psycho list ‘invisible’ MIRRORED home for $18M
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The Hollywood producer duo behind American Psycho and The Virgin Suicides have put their one-of-a-kind ‘invisible’ desert home up for sale for a whopping $18 million, hoping the one-of-a-kind home will be just as successful like some of their pasts. Projects
Chris and Roberta Hanley, who have been partners in life and work since they met in college, spent years designing and building their dream home in Joshua Tree, California, after being informed that their temporary guest house 720 square feet violated local regulations because it was too small.
The couple decided to go big and go home. They began dreaming of their 5,500-square-foot mansion complete with an indoor and outdoor pool, four bedrooms, 360-degree views of Joshua Tree’s astounding natural vistas, and visual features so spectacular that the home appeared on Netflix’s ‘The World’s. The most incredible vacation rentals.
Also has become something of an industry secret, playing host over the years to A-list guests including singer Demi Lovato and musician Diplo.
“I think Demi Lovato saw aliens there,” Chris said. The Wall Street Journal.
The $18 million house in the desert took six years and millions of dollars to build
The house is adorned with few objects of a personal nature. The owners said they did this on purpose so as not to disrupt the minimalist flow of the structure.
The house was designed by the couple and originally sketched by Chris, who said he was inspired by the black cuboid monolith that appeared in the movie ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, as well as the work of Bauhaus architects Lugwig Mies. van der Rohe.
Van der Rohe is part of a small school of architects credited with transforming the look of American industry, particularly office buildings, into cosmopolitan hubs. He designed the famous Seagram Building in New York City.
Chris’s initial effort, however, may have been a little less complicated. “I just drew a rectangle on paper and said, ‘Okay, we’ll build this,'” he told the Journal. He said that he was looking for an ‘ultra minimal thing’.
The project, which began in 2011, was finally completed in 2019 just in time for the couple to spend most of the COVID-19 pandemic in a secluded paradise. Before the pandemic forced some to permanently retire to their weekend homes, the couple used the Joshua Tree home to escape Los Angeles on the weekends.
The approximately 5,500-square-foot home has a fully reflective glass exterior that reflects the dry, rocky desert landscape. The visual effect allows the giant rectangular unit to blend in with the depths of its surroundings.
The four-bedroom home sits on nearly 70 acres next to Joshua Tree National Park. It is approximately 225 feet long from one end to the other. It’s meant to feel like a big, open, floating space.
An exterior view of the cantilevered part of the house, which is supported by metal beams built into the desert rock
The house was built and is owned by Hollywood couple Roberta and Chris Hanley, owners of the company that produced The Virgin Suicides, American Psycho and Spring Breakers.
The spectacular unit measures around 225 feet long and 25 feet wide. It is largely environmentally sustainable and cantilevered to make it look like one side is floating.
It has, among other things, a 100-foot long pool in the middle of the house. Glass walls on three sides of the house can be opened to the outside, turning the pool into a hybrid indoor-outdoor space.
The appearance of the house changes with the weather and the time of day. It is completely reflective against the bright desert sun, mirroring its stunning natural surroundings, while at night it takes on a completely different appearance.
The master bedroom features a bed that sits on a 2,500-pound glass base that took five workers two days of work to assemble and install.
Inside there are very few partitions and most of the glass walls that line the house open to the outside. Located between the master bedroom and the other two bedrooms is a large open plan living area which features a 100ft long indoor swimming pool.
Roberta says they chose to put the pool inside the house to create its own ‘ecosystem’ in the dry environment and bring moisture into the structure.
The structure is also environmentally sustainable. It is powered by a solar thermal system that uses heating panels for electricity, pool and hot water. The roof is also made of an ecological foam.
Respect for the environment is a must considering the surplus of wildlife that surrounds the house on all sides. The Hanleys reported seeing coyotes, rabbits, hawks, quail, and other animals. Only several of which have “bumped” into the reflective glass walls.
The house is also cantilevered, which means that only one side is fixed to the ground and the other side appears to be floating.
Inside the master bedroom, a bed rests on a 2,500-pound glass base that took five workers two days to assemble and install, the couple said.
The house has been rented by some A-list names in Hollywood looking for some quiet time away from the city. Demi Lovato and Diplo include two of the intriguing guests who have stayed at the house, which was previously listed for rent at $150,000 a month.
The house, which features glass that is mostly removable to the outside, has been featured on Netflix’s ‘The World’s Most Amazing Vacation Rentals’.
A magnificent open desert view from inside the house.
Few personal items adorn the spacious house. Roberta says they did this on purpose so as not to disturb the peaceful, minimalist aesthetic of the place.
“I like that it exists on its own, so I don’t like throwing my clothes everywhere,” she said. ‘I wanted it to be a place where your mind [could] drift and you might be inspired.
The couple said the house took more than half a decade and millions of dollars to build. The steel beams alone cost half a million dollars, while the cost of the thousands of pounds of glass came to $700,000.
Tomas Osinski, the architect who helped the couple design the house, said he jokes with the couple about the house that it took “so much money and so much effort, you can’t even see it.”
The house is meant to honor the stunning nature of the area with its invisibility, despite criticism that it became simply a “rich man’s folly”. Its list price now far exceeds any home in the surrounding area, where the median price hovers around $400,000.
In addition to success in the movie industry, Chris spent years working in the music industry, which he said was influential in bringing karaoke to the United States.
Realtors, especially those who currently have the listing, say it’s a wasted effort to compare the price of the mirror house to those in the area because it’s so different. AKG listing agent Aaron Kirman told the magazine that it would now be impossible to build another house like this one due to new regulations regarding the use of glass.
“Good works of art command high prices,” he said.