Inside Noma's scandal-plagued LA pop-up location |
Two unique events are happening Wednesday on a hilltop in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles: In the evening, award-winning Copenhagen restaurant Noma is set to serve its first $1,500 dinner as part of its 16-week LA residency. But before that, hospitality industry workers — led by former head of Noma’s fermentation lab and social media whistleblower Jason Ignacio White — and labor advocates organized by nonprofit organization One Fair Wage are gathering to protest the pop-up and demand accountability from Noma chef and co-owner René Redzepi, whose past allegations of physical and psychological abuse were detailed in a stunning New York Times feature over the weekend.
As global focus falls on Noma and Redzepi, few realize just how auspicious the actual location itself is. The Paramour Estate, where the Noma residency is being held, has always stood apart from the area’s vibrant core just down on Sunset Boulevard. Completed in 1923, the sprawling, 103-year-old estate has a history with twists and turns even windier than the road one must drive to reach it.
Originally commissioned by petroleum heiress and socialite Daisy Canfield for her silent movie star husband, Antonio Moreno, the lavish 5-acre estate — complete with a 22,000-square-foot mansion with 15 bedrooms and 15 bathrooms, as well as staff homes and a stunning pool — was under the stewardship of interior designer Dana Hollister for more than 20 years after she acquired it in 1998 for $2.25 million. The hilltop estate also boasts views of the entire city, all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
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René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of the world-class Danish restaurant Noma, is pictured on May 31, 2021, in Copenhagen.
The Noma residency was poised to shine a positive light on Hollister, whose colorful legal past has involved entanglements with Katy Perry and some nuns. (More on that later.)
“It is so mesmerizing,” prolific San Francisco interior designer Ken Fulk, who helped bring the property out of bankruptcy in 2023, tells SFGATE of the estate. “You can’t believe it exists. It has 360-degree views of Los Angeles and is historically intact.”
Old Hollywood beginnings
The Spanish Mediterranean-style mansion, known for decades as the Canfield-Moreno Estate, was designed by architect Robert D. Farquhar, whose work in LA is iconic thanks to structures like the California Club and Beverly Hills High School. Opulent parties held at the home were attended by Old Hollywood luminaries like Buster Keaton and Marion Davies. The estate also served as a boarding school for girls orphaned during the Great Depression.
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Canfield died in a car crash on Mulholland Drive in 1933. The estate was later gifted to the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in 1953, who used it as a convent and home for girls.
Daisy Canfield and Antonio Moreno, Feb. 25, 1933.
Home of Antonio Moreno, Hollywood, Calif., circa 1920s.
Hollister, a designer and restaurateur known for iconic LA restaurants like Brite Spot and Cliff’s Edge, as well as Downtown LA venues like Villains Tavern and One-Eyed Gypsy, entered the picture decades later. After acquiring the property in 1998, she renovated and restored the mansion and guest houses, and renamed it the Paramour Estate.
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“The bold colors, opulent gilded mirrors, crystal chandeliers, allegorical artwork, taxidermy and silk upholstered settees that decorate the mansion set a feeling of environmental submersion or time travel,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2021. “A visitor can experience what it must have been like to visit the mansion in its glorious prime.” (SFGATE reached out to Hollister for comment on this story but did not hear back.)
The Paramour Estate operated for a time as a boutique hotel, and it was often used as a rental space for photo, album and video shoots, Britney Spears’ 2004 remake of “My Prerogative” among them.
A view of the atmosphere at an event celebrating debut of the “Elisa” bag from Christian Louboutin at the Paramour Estate on Dec. 5, 2019, in Los Angeles.
Around a decade later, things started to get really weird. In 2015, Hollister became embroiled in a legal battle with pop star Katy Perry over the right to buy an 8-acre convent in Los Feliz. Ultimately, the convent — which featured 30,000 square feet of living space, a pool and a prayer house — was never sold to either party, but the enduring ownership tug-of-war played out in pop culture magazines and local newspapers for years — particularly after an 89-year-old nun collapsed and died in court. Hollister was ultimately sentenced to pay $6.5 million in damages.
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In 2021, Hollister listed the Paramour Estate for sale to the tune of a cool $40 million, at the time the highest asking price ever for a home in Silver Lake. It later fell into bankruptcy, until it was saved and acquired once again in 2023 by Fairview Partners Investment Management, who partnered with Fulk and developer Clark Lyda to breathe new life into the property.
Fulk and Lyda have been “gently restoring” the Paramour Estate for the past three years, making subtle improvements to bring the home back into working order and “help figure out its future,” according to Fulk.
“It’s become my life’s mission to help rehabilitate these historic structures,” Fulk, who also operates St. Joseph’s Arts Society in San Francisco, says. “I grew up as a kid who fantasized about Hollywood. LA has this storied quality. This place is really special. It’s a walled estate in the center of the city.”
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Fulk notes that Hollister is still involved with the property, and he points to it as a bright light in a city that has had an extremely difficult past few years, reeling from the pandemic, the entertainment industry strikes and January 2025’s wildfires. The bad news continues to pile on for Noma as well: Given this weekend’s revelations, the restaurant has lost two major sponsors for its LA residency.
“Paramour Estate is a place of history that’s being saved and beautified and celebrated,” Fulk says. “It’s lived many salacious lives. It’s a wonderful story in a city that needs wonderful stories.”
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