Sunset Boulevard House

This is a video of the current location of the old Sunset Boulevard home. Norma Desmond’s glorious old Renaissance-style mansion was located in midtown Los Angeles. It stood, until 1957, at 641 South Irving Boulevard on the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard, when – unbelievably – it was demolished to make way for the glumly nondescript Getty headquarters, now the Harbor Building.

The mansion, seen also in Rebel Without A Cause, was built in the Twenties for a former US Consul in Mexico, who abandoned the building, leaving it vacant for over ten years until it was bought by J Paul Getty. At the time of filming of Sunset Boulevard, the mansion had passed to Mrs J Paul Getty in a divorce settlement and she, in turn, rented the property out to Paramount on condition the film company built her a swimming pool.