Woodland Hills, Los Angeles
A mid-century
reimagined, above the Valley
20339 Delita Drive — five bedrooms, a bedrock-engineered infinity pool, and 180° views, designed by AIA architect Samuel D. Wacht.
Woodland Hills, Los Angeles
20339 Delita Drive — five bedrooms, a bedrock-engineered infinity pool, and 180° views, designed by AIA architect Samuel D. Wacht.
Set on a cul-de-sac south of Ventura Boulevard, this post-and-beam residence was completed eight years after Wacht's most celebrated commission — the 1960 Trousdale Estates home built for Howard Hughes, later featured in Architectural Digest and Dwell. Delita Drive carries the same vocabulary into the hills above the Valley: post-and-beam construction, vaulted ceilings, walls of glass, and rooms that never quite decide where indoors ends.
The renovation is not cosmetic. In 2014 the house was taken down to the studs — new roof, new electrical, new plumbing through most of the house, and a full HVAC replacement — the first chapter of more than $1.1 million in documented capital improvement since. New windows and doors followed throughout, and in 2021 a saltwater infinity pool and spa were engineered on twelve concrete caissons drilled into bedrock. A whole-home Control4 and Lutron system, a chef-grade outdoor kitchen, and a fully owned 12.8kW solar array came after that. What you see in the photographs below — and what you won't, until an inspector asks — is a house that was rebuilt to be lived in hard for the next fifty years, not staged for the next thirty days.
Twin Spanish-tile rooflines meet a hand-carved front door set behind low white walls and mature palms. Step inside and the ceiling lifts immediately — dark wood beams rising to a stacked-stone chimney that anchors the great room beyond.
A sculptural iron staircase spirals up beside a full-height stone fireplace, dividing the living and dining rooms without ever closing them off. Walls of glass open completely, so the terrace, the pool, and the Valley become, in effect, another room.
The open-plan great room at roughly 43 by 57 feet beneath a 23-foot vaulted ceiling — original 1968 post-and-beam framing, not a later addition.
Rift-cut walnut cabinetry runs the full length of the room, met by honed marble counters and a full-slab marble backsplash behind a professional-grade range. A massive island seats four; a full-size double French door professional refrigerator, a standard refrigerator, and a wide fridge keep everything cool for the party.
Nearly every living space opens directly onto the terrace: the breakfast nook, the great room, the primary suite. A sunken lounge with a built-in Hestan BBQ complete with side burner and rotisserie sits just below the main pool deck, angled to catch the last light over the Valley.
The primary suite sits on the first floor. Corner walls of glass and doors open directly onto the spa and pool deck, so the suite steps straight out to the water. A spa-inspired bath with a deep soaking tub and a custom island walk-in closet, finished like a boutique dressing room, complete the suite.
A billiards table, a second wet bar, and a lounge with room for a large wall-mounted movie screen, all in a cozy wood-beamed vaulted room — pre-wired for an 11.1 surround system and projector, with the equipment closet already run to a guest room down the hall.
The remaining bedrooms sit apart from the primary suite, each with its own bath or a Jack-and-Jill arrangement, and several with the same corner-window Valley views. A private study with direct pool access, lined in built-in shelving, works equally well as a home office or a fifth bedroom — complete with its own full bath with a separate shower and tub.
Floor-to-ceiling built-ins on one wall, a wall of glass on the other — the study gets the same terrace access and Valley view as the primary suite, on the ground floor.
On a hillside lot, the first question any inspector asks is what the pool deck is sitting on. Here, the answer is documented engineering: twelve caissons drilled into bedrock, a reinforced structural slab, and a cantilevered deck that hangs out over the slope — work that is invisible in every photograph below, and impossible to add after the fact.
Saltwater infinity pool, spa, and cantilevered BBQ deck, freshly built in 2021 on twelve concrete caissons drilled into bedrock, with all new top end Jandy equipment and variable speed pumps included in the build — over $650k invested to create a spa like experience complete with a deep well hydrotherapy spa.
A single professionally programmed system runs lighting, shades, six-zone Bowers & Wilkins audio, security, and the pool from one app, on a commercial-grade UniFi network throughout.
A 12.8kW array, fully owned with no lease or PPA, produced 17.8 MWh last year — offsetting roughly 75% of the home's usage under a grandfathered NEM 2.0 tariff.
A 36" Hestan grill with rotisserie and infrared sear, a Hestan side burner, and Urban Bonfire cabinetry with a Caesarstone top — the outdoor-kitchen equivalent of Wolf and Sub-Zero.
The hillside has been engineered three times in fifty-seven years: original 1968 structural design, a 1981 underpinning of the rear structure by a five-decade veteran engineer whose credits include the Watts Towers retrofit, and licensed geotechnical caisson work in 2021.
Epoxy floors, slatwall storage, Saber cabinetry, a 60-gallon compressor plumbed to every bay, a 240V EV charger, and a softened-water tap for washing cars — a finished shop, not a place to park.
