the Stephen Hahn Gallery in the collection of Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza. House In 1949, the couple commissioned a modernist house in Holmby Hills by architect A. Quincy Jones and interior designer William Haines. The house combined two fashionable contemporary styles: California mid-century Modernist architecture and sophisticated Hollywood Moderne décor. The house became a gathering spot for a cross-section of the city's elite, from old Los Angeles families such as the Chandlers to Hollywood icons Gary Cooper and Joan Crawford and also served as a showcase for a stunning art collection. Shortly after the house was completed, the Brodys commissioned Henri Matisse in 1952 to execute a massive ceramic-tile wall mural, one of few the artist ever made, for their courtyard. In 1953 they traveled to France to review his preliminary maquette. The story of Frances’s polite resistance to Matisse’s first cut-out design and how she persuaded the artist to provide alternatives is now legend. Matisse eventually created a 12-by-11-foot ceramic-tile wall mural for the courtyard. It was later donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The Brody House was listed for sale in May 2010 for $24.95 million, the same week the Brody's art collection hit the auction block at Christie's in New York. The home at 360 South Mapleton Drive, next door to the Playboy Mansion, sits on and includes a tennis court and a pool with a guesthouse. It was designed with a modernist décor that includes a floating staircase and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that create an indoor-outdoor living space considered cutting edge at the time. The Brody House was sold for $14.8 million in late December 2010. The investor/owner spent three years working with the Los Angeles Conservancy to restore the house. In 2014, Ellen DeGeneres bought the house for $39.888 million in an off-market deal. References American philanthropists American people of German-Jewish descent American art collectors Jewish American art collectors Women collectors Jewish American philanthropists People from Los Angeles Vassar College alumni 1916 births 2009 deaths People from Holmby Hills, Los Angeles 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews