We are proud to announce that the Isherwood-Bachardy house and studio on Adelaide Drive in Los Angeles, California, have been designated a Historic-Cultural Monument with unanimous support from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission and the Los Angeles City Council.

The writer Christopher Isherwood and the artist Don Bachardy began living in the house at the edge of Santa Monica in 1959.  "We are both still in the first delight of being here," Isherwood wrote in his diary after they moved in, calling it "a real house, a long in-and-out place of many rooms and half-rooms, passageways and alcoves... there really is a hillside privacy and snugness."

Isherwood wrote six books in the house, including A Single Man and Christopher and His Kind.  Bachardy has painted more than 12,000 portraits in the studio, from Laurence Olivier to Allen Ginsberg, from Jerry Brown to Tilda Swinton.

Isherwood and Bachardy welcomed thousands of visitors to Adelaide Drive in the 26 years they lived there together.  Bachardy still lives and works there.  “Whenever I was in Los Angeles, Chris and Don generously folded me into their circle of friends, a variable feast that could mean anyone from David Hockney to roving poets and porn stars,” wrote American author Armistead Maupin.  He has said of the house, "When I visit now, I shiver with the memories of how it felt to sit there and listen to people tell the truth about their lives."

Katherine Bucknell, editor of Isherwood’s diaries and the Isherwood-Bachardy love letters and Executive Director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, observes, “The book Isherwood was writing at the time of his death was about his life in California; he planned to tell the story through the places he lived after arriving in the US in 1939.  He had come in search of what he called a sexual homeland; he knew that he had found it and that he had lived it in the four walls of a home.  Don Bachardy was the love of his life, his adopted son, his artistic collaborator.  They gradually remodelled the property to fit their needs as men and as artists.  The house and studio reflect their interconnected imaginative lives and their domestic commitment to a way of life once unacceptable to the mainstream and now held sacred--as befits all relationships based on love.”

The designation as a Historic-Cultural Monument ensures the lives and legacies of Isherwood and Bachardy will continue to be commemorated.  "Chris and Don are icons of the 20th century.  We are so proud to have been part of the team that has helped to ensure their history is celebrated and remembered," said Nels Youngborg of Chattel, Inc.  Heartfelt thanks to Nels, Robert Chattel and Alvin-Christian Nuval of Chattel, Inc. for their expert and tenacious work to make this happen.  Thanks also to the Los Angeles Conservancy and the Santa Monica Conservancy, and to Councilman Mike Bonin and his Senior Planning Deputy Len Nguyen for their support.