By Katherine Clarke

Historical romance novelist Kathryn Le Veque loves nothing more than a deep dive into history, in order to set her love affairs against the backdrop of medieval England. Her home in Glendora, Calif., sent her down a new rabbit hole.

The Wallace Neff-designed home dates to the 1930s, when it was created for Arthur K. Bourne, heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. It has a hidden steel-lined safe room designed to protect the Singer family following the Lindbergh baby kidnapping in 1932. Built during Prohibition, the room also serves as a speakeasy.

Le Veque calls the property "adult Disney Land." She and her husband, Robert Hogan, purchased the home for $3.6 million in 2021 after spotting it on Zillow. The property was so vast, with 30 rooms, that they returned to explore it three times before making an offer.

"This house has experienced a lot," says Le Veque. "Living here, it's like you're living people's lives kind of vicariously. That's also what I do when I write."

Architecture buff

Le Veque, whose most famous novel is "The Wolfe," was raised in a 1929 Tudor home in Pasadena, Calif., where there are several notable homes designed by Neff. When she saw the Singer home was a Neff, she was immediately interested.

"I thought, 'Oh my god, I have to have this. I don't care. I'll write a million books to pay for this thing,' " she says.

The previous owner spent more than $3 million on a massive renovation around 2003, a remodel that Le Veque described as injecting some much-needed "Botox" into the "Grand Dame." However, the previous owner had finished the property in a Georgian style, which was not to Le Veque's tastes.

"There wasn't a wall that wasn't covered with something like a Baroque cherub or a gilded mirror," she says.

Le Veque stripped back many of those details to return the property closer to its original aesthetic, which she found documented in an Architectural Digest feature from the 1930s. She restored the original parquet floors and some of its original Art Deco look.

Can't-miss features

There is a circa-1880s school house on the grounds that was moved there decades ago by the owner of a house that used to be on the same site, who had intended to use it as a playhouse for their children, Le Veque says. The novelist says she left the school house, which still has all the original desks, untouched.

For Le Veque's 60th birthday in 2024, the couple hosted a "Great Gatsby"-themed murder mystery party at the house. She wore a custom 1930s flapper costume with silver lamé details and a big feather in her hair. "Honest to God, at our age, when do you get to dress up?"

Reason for selling?

Le Veque says the couple is selling because her husband has experienced some health issues over the past year. He told her the property has begun to feel like a lot of work.

"It's with great sadness that I eventually agreed with him," she says.

Le Veque, who is starting work on her 169th novel, says the house inspired one of her recent novels set in the 1930s, "The Girl Made of Stars."

Market snapshot

Located in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, Glendora is known for its diversity of architectural styles, including Queen Annes, Victorians and ranch-style homes. The area is popular with commuters both to L.A. and Orange County, says listing agent Sally Forster Jones of Compass, who shares the listing with Tomer Fridman of Christie's International Southern California.

The highest listing price in the area is $9.5 million, while the median list price is about $920,000.

Write to Katherine Clarke at Katherine.Clarke@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 20, 2025 15:32 ET (19:32 GMT)

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