Beverly Crest Mansion, California
post updated July 8, 2026
Architecture: Whipple Russell Architects
Location: Beverly Hills, Southern California, USA
Photos by Simon Berlyn
July 26, 2025
In Los Angeles, where the landscape is as much a client as the human resident, architecture becomes an act of translation. This Beverly Hills hillside home, conceived by Whipple Russell Architects, answers a geologic challenge with sculptural serenity – a cascading Mediterranean retreat that follows the natural slope of its ridgeline parcel with grace, restraint, and reverence.
Perched on a steep incline without a single flat pad, the home emerges not as a monolith, but as a rhythmic series of terraced levels – each responding to topography, setback, and sun.
A three-story stack was prohibited by geology and code; instead, the home steps elegantly down the hill, revealing five distinct levels that blend into the terrain like architecture in dialogue with earth.
A bridge across a tranquil reflecting pond welcomes visitors to the entry, where glass, stone, and wood begin their quiet interplay. Just below, a 500-square-foot basement lounge sits recessed beneath a courtyard, hidden from the street and wrapped in stillness.
From the main floor – anchored by the kitchen, breakfast nook, and entertaining spaces – two staircases lead to the lower level: one winding downward in a sculptural S-curve past an Audrey Hepburn portrait to the lounge, bar, theater, indoor spa, and basketball court; the other also rising to a rooftop terrace, where the view stretches from downtown to the ocean with a tilt of the head.
Throughout the home, materials reflect a warm modernism rarely seen in contemporary hillside builds: rich woods, green velvet, natural stone, and white venetian plaster create a palette that is tactile and timeless. Finishes were intentionally softened – gridded guardrails, wood slats, and box-mullioned glass lend a sense of craft and structure. This is not minimalist modernism; it is an invitation to linger.
In the primary suite, a sense of intrigue persists. The entrance to the primary bath is seamlessly concealed behind wood paneling – hidden doors flush with the headboard wall swing open only to those who know they exist. It’s a moment of architectural theater, subtle and seductive.
Outdoor space was treated as essential architecture: the pool – flanked by sculptural fire features and accessed via mirror-image pool steps – is a stage for reflection and play. Water trickles from spherical fountains surrounded by square fire rings, and a waterfall at the edge of the infinity pool cascades down into ponds beside the lower-level lounge.
Each elevation offers its own retreat: a spa here, a gym there, mini golf below, all revealed in layers, never at once.
Maximized to its zoning envelope and carved directly into the slope, the home is a feat of constraint and vision – as responsive to code as it is to climate, as reverent to the land as it is luxurious in use. It is, in every way, a house that couldn’t belong anywhere else.
Beverly Crest, Beverly Hills, California – Property Information
PROJECT TEAM:
Principal Architect: Marc Whipple AIA
Architect + Project Manager: Yoav Weiss
DEVELOPER:
Huntington Estate Properties
CONSULTANTS
Interior Design: Ramtin Ray Nosrati
Structural: MLB Engineering
Audio / Video: Plug It In Systems
PROJECT COMPLETED: April 2025
PROJECT SIZE: 12,000 sf
Photographer: Simon Berlyn
LINK TO WEBSITE PAGE
https://whipplerussell.com/architecture/beverly-crest-beverly-hills
1414 Donhill Drive, Beverly Hills, California, USA, images / information received 250725 from Whipple Russell Architects
Location: 1414 Donhill Drive, Beverly Hills, Southern California, United States of America.
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Comments / photos for the Beverly Crest, Beverly Hills, California designed by Whipple Russell Architects, United States of America, page welcome.
