The creator of the music and lyrics for Broadway’s The Notebook is saying goodbye to Los Angeles, at least for now.

Shortly after selling her song catalogue in 2019, Ingrid Michaelson began to look for a new house. The singer-songwriter, who has had three songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, including the platinum-selling single Girls Chase Boys, was living in New York at the time. But her brother and his family were planning a move to Southern California. “So I figured I would sort of beat them to the punch and get something out there so that I could be near my family,” she says.

The third property she saw was a Spanish revival in Outpost Estates, a neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills between Runyon Canyon Park to the west, US Route 101 to the east, and Mulholland Drive to the north. The house is 3,520 sq ft, with three bedrooms, three-and-a-half bathrooms, and sweeping views of Los Angeles.

“I remember walking in and thinking, ‘I don’t deserve this’,” Michaelson recalls. “Literally, ‘This is out of my league. What am I doing here?’”

But it wasn’t out of her league. She bought it in June 2019 for what Zillow lists as about US$3.6 million and moved in with her partner, Will Chase, a few months later.

It became the perfect home to ride out Covid-19 lockdowns, but once they lifted, it turned out that Michaelson’s brother would not be moving to California. Moreover, Michaelson had begun work on the musical adaptation of The Notebook, which is currently on Broadway. Chase, an actor, also had work on the East Coast.

So, finding herself rarely in Los Angeles, Michaelson has put her house on the market for US$4.3 million ($5.9 million), listing it with Eric Lavey of Sotheby’s International Realty-Beverly Hills Brokerage. “I started to realise that it was more of this beautiful, almost jewel that we never wore,” she says. “And it’s such a gorgeous place. I just feel like someone should live in it.”

Moving in

The house was built in the late 1920s by Charles Toberman, whose prolific development activity in the city earned him the moniker “Mr Hollywood”. Among other places he developed are the Hollywood Bowl and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, both less than a 10-minute drive away.

Michaelson says the house is one of five model homes Toberman used to sell in the Outpost Estates. “We have a photograph of the house that stays with each owner,” she says. “It’s really cool because there’s just nothing on the hills. There’s just these few little houses dotted around.” Today, the Estates numbers about 450 properties. “What I love about it is that it feels removed from the world, but it’s also right by the Hollywood Bowl.”

After purchasing the property from actress Ashley Tisdale, Michaelson installed much of her own furniture and “ended up buying a lot of pieces from Ashley because she was moving into a new home and wanted all completely new stuff”. Today, that furniture is out of the house; in its stead is staging from designer Francesca Grace, though the white baby grand piano in the living room is Michaelson’s, which she says she is open to selling along with the house.

The house is one of just a few built by Toberman left in the area, according to the listing broker, but the asking price puts it in line with similar houses nearby. Just up the street, a four-bed, five-bath home on a larger lot sold for US$6.5 million in 2022, according to Zillow. Earlier this year, a slightly larger house a few minutes’ walk from Michaelson’s sold for just under US$5 million. “The neighbours are so lovely,” she says. “Everybody looks out for each other.”

Michaelson updated the finishes, but the only major work she did to the house was in the kitchen, which she says she gutted at the end of 2020. “I didn’t love the kitchen that was there,” she explains. “It felt fine, but I wanted something magical.”

What’s inside

The house, which has a two-car garage, is set behind a wall covered in thick foliage and flanked by two mature trees in front. Visitors enter a few steps onto the main entertaining floor, which contains a living room, dining room and the renovated kitchen. “It’s really open,” Michaelson says. “You can walk in a complete circle because the rooms are connected with no doors, and along the wall that faces the view, it’s all just French doors.”

Nothing, she continues, “feels stagnant, which is really nice when you have a lot of people in a home and they can spill out into the multiple outdoor spaces”.

There’s a courtyard covered in bougainvillaea with outdoor seating, a tiled deck that runs the length of the main floor and a separate terrace on the floor below. The house is mostly on two main levels, plus a lower floor with a guest studio that has its own bedroom, living room, full bath and outdoor terrace.

The primary suite on the top floor is encircled by windows. It has a bathroom with a soaking tub and views stretching to the Griffith Observatory and the Capitol Records building. The primary suite also has a huge walk-in closet.

Michaelson says that she and her partner “aren’t big entertaining people”, but when they had guests over, despite the many entertaining areas, people tended to congregate in the kitchen, which has a large centre table and opens onto the balcony. She also tends to use it more than any other room, she says. “It’s just such an inviting place,” she says. “I just kind of sit with a book and stare. And if it’s too cold to get out on the patio, you get the same view from the little banquette in the corner.”

Michaelson imagines that the house’s next owner will have a similar sensibility as herself, “someone who loves that vintage feeling, that you’re in something that’s really been lived in and experienced”. “And somebody who likes to have their privacy but also be kind of close to the action.”

Los Angeles, she continues, was “just this dreamy moment and time”. “And I hope whoever buys it recognises how special it is and stays there for a long time.”

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