LA’s iconic Sowden House parties on, with new purpose

A party house with a dark past is getting new life as a party house with a purpose. And it combines the preservation of architectural heritage with an embrace of CBD, or cannabidiol, a hemp extract.

Sowden House, built by Lloyd Wright - Frank’s son - for John and Ruth Sowden in 1926, is an architectural icon in the Los Feliz neighborhood.

It’s tenth owners - CBD mogul Dan Goldfarb and his wife Jenny Landers - have repurposed the home as a site for parties, charitable events and a space for educating the public about CBD. Goldfarb is the founder of Canna-Pet, a maker of CBD supplements for dogs, cats and other animals.

Along the way Goldfarb and Landers have invested heavily in maintenance of the house, remaking the courtyard and restoring the Wrightian "textile concrete" blocks used decoratively throughout.

DnA toured the house, as guests at a launch party for a “Black Dahlia” CBD-infused candle collection. The name refers to the grisly murder of aspiring actress Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, in 1947. Many believe she was murdered by a previous tenant of the home, George Hodel, possibly at the home itself.

The case is the subject of the new TNT miniseries “I Am The Night,” and the show recreates the bizarre and depraved parties Hodel allegedly hosted at the house.

One of the stranger attractions at the Sowden House is the owners’ seven Persian cats, flat-faced and shorn of fur except for fluffy heads and paws. They are meant to look like little lions, explains Jenny Landers, who told DnA: “I was always pretty allergic to cats and Persians’ hair is different. They won't shed.”

Mariano Rivera, the oldest, whose tongue always sticks out, got very sick a few years back and inspired Dan Goldfarb to create his CBD supplements for pets.

A Persian cat at the Sowden House. Photo by Amy Ta/KCRW.

Landers says he, “was on all these terrible drugs and his hair was falling out and we just took him off all those drugs and we started using him and I guess as our guinea pig and he just like got so much better and he's still with us.

And no, the cats don’t get high. CBD is cannabidiol, not cannabis. Another cat -- Reggie -- lives up to the Hollywood history of the house. Landers says, “I just got him in an indie movie so hopefully he'll be famous.”