According to LA Magazine, the image of two women conversing at night, seated inside a transparent box hovering over a seemingly endless sea of city lights, is “perhaps the most famous photograph of Los Angeles ever taken”. Julius Shulman captured it; and it’s hard to argue otherwise: since 1960 (setting aside the ubiquitous Hollywood sign), this photograph has come to define the modern image of Los Angeles. That image is inseparable from the Stahl House, Pierre Koenig’s daring cantilevered residence, which is not only #22 in the legendary Case Study Houses program – alongside work by Richard Neutra, Craig Ellwood, the Eameses and others – but also an archetype of American mid‑century modern.

If we add that this is the only Case Study House to have remained in the hands of its original commissioning family – and that 2025 marks the very first time it has ever appeared on the market – it becomes less surprising that, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, the Stahl House now arrives for sale with an asking price of $25 million.

Looking at the concrete substance of the place, the architecture of the Stahl House remains an anthology of exceptional gestures. Its L‑shaped plan sits atop a dramatically steep lot — a site that had already discouraged more than one architect before meeting Koenig, who found in it the cue for his decisive cantilever. The result is an image so essential to architectural history, and to global visual culture, that it has been reiterated across films, series, and collective memory. Steel structure, broad metal overhangs, a transparent envelope, and a freestanding brick fireplace anchoring the living space: the whole Case Study Houses dictionary is present. The original layout, designed for the commissioning family, includes a distributive choice that might feels quite radical today: the enfilade arrangement of the two bedrooms. The total footprint, moreover, is modest for a high‑value listing: 214 square metres. But it’s clear enough that square footage is not the prize one acquires when choosing to follow the Stahl heirs as custodians of their home.

What’s more, for the past 17 years the house has been open to visitors, albeit with restrictions on photographs – rules reminiscent of those posted in certain music shops in the 2000s, where customers were formally forbidden from testing guitars with the riff from Smoke on the Water. The family has stated that the visiting program will remain open for as long as possible, and that although they must now leave the house for reasons of age and upkeep, they are available to provide the kind of guidance for care and maintenance that only the original clients of a modernist masterpiece can offer.