Tuesday, August 16, 2011

"The House of Davids"


There are many ways you could list the well-known white house in Hancock Park that is on sale for $2.1 million:

It has a pool, a sauna and a steam room.

A home theater with a bar.

Six bedrooms and six baths.

Nineteen Michelangelo's Davids lined up along the curve of its front lawn.

Like the statues? Keep them. Don't like them? Ditch them.

Norwood Young couldn't care less.

The House of Davids became a pop landmark almost the instant Young startled his sedate street by putting the white statues up on pedestals.

Fourteen years later, cars still slow as they pass. Double-decker tour buses lumber by so tourists can snap photos.

Young used to love turning heads — lighting up the lawn, throwing over-the-top theme parties, dressing his naked giant slayers in long red Santa hats for Christmas and "Thriller" jackets in tribute to the late King of Pop.

But now he is done with the Davids, he says.

As long as the people who buy the house pay him, so be it if they strip it back to basic ranch.

"I wouldn't give a rat's behind what they did," says this man who has been singing professionally all his life and has grown tired of being known not for his voice but for his house.

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