the House That Don Henley Built

The House That Don Built

It was immortalized in the Fleetwood Mac song "Sara" (When you build your house, call me...."). Don helped build it with his bare hands. According to interviews, it was usually cluttered and messy, but the gardens were spacious and beautiful. And it is no more. The Northridge Earthquake in 1994 claimed Don Henley's home, "Sonora" as one of its victims. Located up on Mulholland drive, the property afforded a view of the city. Today, passers-by can see only a hole in the ground guarded by some of the weeping willows Don planted. Don no longer owns this property as it was recently sold to novelist Judith Kranz's son, but thanks to a long-out-of-print book, Musical Houses, we can still get a flavor for what Don's home used to be like. The entire Sonora chapter of the book can be downloaded in its entirety

"Sonora, Don Henley's Los Angeles townhouse, was intended from its earliest inception to rise from its promontory setting high above Beverly Hills in dramatic contrast to the unyielding glass and steel milieu of the city below--to provide respite from the fury of its pace, to nourish the heart with quiet in a city of noise and intellect. The house would reflect the abiding regard held by the region's earliest inhabitants for the fragile and compelling beauty of the land and the spirit of warm, open hospitality and simple elegance of the Spanish families who spread across California its most enduring cultural fabric. Before any thought as given to form and style, it was determined that the architecture would find its shape among the tall Ponderosa pines, the old cactus and native rock formations, all of which would be left undisturbed.

Don Henley was born in Cass County, the hill country of northeast Texas, among rolling meadows of blue-bonnets that flow to measureless horizons. he often traveled in his early years with the family to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains above the Rio Grande Valley of northern New Mexico, where the great river is a mountain stream and the ancient spreading cottonwood paints its image on the memories of all who pass by. It may have been in Santa Fe and Taos and the old outlying Spanish farming communities that the grace of village living became apparent in the special quality of the architecture it engendered.

Sonora would become, during the three years of its design and construction, an expression of cherished Southwestern architectural vernaculars, much as Henley's own work embodies something of the gothic western romance. It is a native architecture, neither strictly Spanish nor Indian, reflecting and applying forms and methods long used and indigenous to the American Southwest, from Texas to the Pacific, from the southern Rockies to Quintana Roo.

The house is anything but imposing. The heavy white plaster walls rise up one story to a low, sloping mission tile roof, rising and falling and turning to follow the rooms as they meander around the three or four secluded courtyards that form the basis of the floor plan. Sonora seems to possess a magical quality, with an endless variety of ways to get from one part of the house to another. The courtyards that have always been near the heart of cheerful living lend to this house an airy spaciousness that does not permit any feeling of confinement, which might be expected in a home of such modest proportions. Above all, Sonora is a place for living, at a quiet bend in the crowded and relentless road traveled by a celebrated artist and performer. The open, flowing interior provides a space for the enjoyment of a satisfying aloneness so vital yet so rarely found. And it is a home of family and friends, warm and inviting and filled with light.

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