01 September 2020

Stoody Hilltop House For Sale

Another landmark property in Carbon Canyon up for sale currently is the hilltop house at the summit between Western Hills Country Club and the Summit Ranch tract.  The 3,645 square foot single-story ranch house on just over 1.5 acres has panoramic views that are, with few exceptions, unparalleled in the city and there are plenty of amenities of interest.

The house was the country place of Shelly Stoody, a Whittier blacksmith who parlayed his invention of a highly durable oil drilling tool bit into a substantial fortune.  Stoody, who lived on the Palos Verdes peninsula and commuted regularly to work at his Whittier headquarters by helicopter, acquired several hundred acres in Carbon Canyon in the early 1950s and built his second home on the hilltop in 1952.

An avid aviator, Stoody also had a landing strip and hangar for his small private plane, which he regularly used to visit his ranch, which was stocked with purebred cattle, horses and other animals.  After about a decade or so of owning and using his ranch, Stoody took up some passengers for a flight, but was drunk when he veered the plane into a hillside just below the house to the west, killing himself and his passengers.

Stoody's widow immediately sold the ranch, most of which was turned into Western Hills Country Club and which opened in the mid-1960s.  The airplane hangar, incidentally, is still around and is used by the club for maintenance equipment storage at the far west end of the course.

As for the house, it is listed $1,688.000 through Patrick Wood and you can learn more about the property, including a detailed description and lots of photograph, here.

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