Infamous Los Felis murder house sells after asking price slashed

One of LA’s most notorious homicide sites, the “Los Feliz murder mansion”, has reportedly found a buyer after 16 months on the market.

The house, a landmark for true-crime fans, ranks up there with Nicole Brown Simpson’s Brentwood property, according to Variety, and is considered one of America’s greatest murder houses.

The five-bedroom, four-bathroom house was listed in May 2019 for $3.92 million (AUD) but after 16 months on the market, the price was slashed to $3.51 million (AUD) and quickly sold.

Situated on a quiet, leafy cul-de-sac in the exclusive Los Feliz Hills neighborhood, the sprawling 1925 residence found infamy not just because of the murder that occurred there but also because of what happened after.

In the early hours of December 6, 1959, successful cardiologist Dr Harold Perelson took a ball-peen hammer to his wife’s head, killing her in one blow while she slept.

He then went into the room of his teenage daughter, Judy, and struck her with the hammer but instead of killing her, she woke up and began screaming. She managed to escape, as did her two younger siblings, and survived the attack – but her father took his own life at the scene.

Variety reports that shortly after the killings, the family’s home was sold via an estate auction to to a couple who, it seems, could never bring themselves to move into a house with such a dark history.

They reportedly visited the mansion on occasion, and even stored some of their possessions there, but they never lived there and they never moved the Perelsons’ belongings out.

The house sat frozen in time, unused, even after the couple passed away and their son inherited the property – he too left it in its time capsule state and the three-storey home, perched high on a steep hill, sat as an eerie reminder of a high-profile murder-suicide, a magnet for macabre tourists and American crime enthusiasts who did drive-bys for many decades after.

The mansion was not put up for sale again until 2016, a year after the son died. It was the first time the property had been stripped of its 1959 belongings and even after decades of neglect, it was snapped up $3.21 million (AUD) and the new owners began an extensive renovation.

Then in May 2019, the property once again was listed for sale, with the owners citing renovation red tape as the reason they were bailing out.

Now the Los Feliz murder house is just a shell, with many of the original featured such as the ballroom’s art deco-style bar removed without a trace.

A few historic details remain, like the mirrored fireplace in the sunken living room, but otherwise, the house is in need of some serious work. Or a knock down.