Writer and producer Michah Schraft appears to have celebrated his upwardly mobile professional success with the not quite $1.8 million purchase of a boldly quirky, Tinseltown-tinged home in L.A.’s historic and hipster-fied Dodger Stadium-adjacent Echo Park neighborhood.
Schraft , who cut his television teeth on the provocatively named HBO male prostitution series “Hung” and the Netflix neo-noir supernatural series “Jessica Jones,” spent a few season on The CW’s satirical telenovela “Jane the Virgin” before signing on for “Mrs. America,” the “ambitious” and acclaimed Hulu biopic of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, starring Cate Blanchett, Rose Byrne and Sarah Paulson, for which he received an Emmy nomination earlier this year.
Built in 1915 in a boldly brick-accented French Normandy style, and commissioned by silent film actor and director Edward LeSaint, the property was later owned by prolific actor and filmmaker Marshall “Mickey” Neilan and silent film star Blanche Sweet prior to their 1929 divorce. Since significantly updated for modern life, there are three bedrooms and two bathrooms in close to 2,600 square feet. Set among simple plantings, gentle mounds of evenly cut grass and majestic trees, the home sports a cross-gable roofline and a pleasantly eccentric floor plan highlighted by a variety of authentic details. There are warm Douglas Fir floors throughout, tons of French doors that allow for charming access to numerous patios, porches and balconies, and, along the curved staircase that curls tightly up in the turret that dominates the front façade, gigantic multi-pane windows.
A decorative fireplace anchors one end of the central living room, and French doors lead to an angled loggia. The separate dining room, an unconventionally shaped six-sided room with French doors to both the front and back yards, serves as a pass through to the not-especially-spacious eat-in kitchen. Spider web veined white marble countertops gussy up the compact cooking space that opens to a sunny and sweet breakfast room with a remarkable amount of pantry space and storage as well as more French doors to the backyard.
The main floor master suite, with a lovely if by-any-standard petite en suite marble bathroom, is privately tucked away off a cozy study behind the living room. Upstairs are two more unexpectedly substantial bedroom suites, one with a dressing area, the other a two-room suite and both with French doors to a meandering balcony hidden amid the backyard’s mature trees. A vintage-inspired bathroom with claw-footed tub, marble-sheathed shower and vanity fashioned from an antique dresser completes the cottage-core-ready scene.
The back of the house gently embraces a serene, tree-shaded courtyard garden with a fairly grand three-tier fountain encircled by a red brick path. A pint-sized detached pavilion makes a perfect meditation pod, fitness room or home office. And, beyond the fountain, and past a circular dining terrace that sits like an island amid a tiny sea of sun-dappled grass, a roomy and eye-catching covered terrace under a vaulted trellis sits atop a street-level single-car garage.
The property was jointly listed with Darren Hubert and Joe Cloninger of Keller Williams Realty Los Feliz, while Schraft was repped by Geoff Clark at Compass.
Schraft appears to have a yen for the East Side of Los Angeles: he has owned a home in neighboring (and also hipster fashionable) Silver Lake neighborhood since 2014 when he plunked down about $640,000 for a modernized and, especially for its tight quarters, remarkably private 1920s Spanish bungalow secreted down an all-but-hidden (and gated) walk street.