The former home of the Minnellis still sits on N. Crescent Drive – but it’s a forgotten, dilapidated husk of what it once was.

Beverly Hills is full of magnificent homes. Yet somewhere among the glamorous villas of the rich and famous lies a decrepit building. The mansion was once the home of talented Hollywood director Vincente Minnelli and his family – but it has since been abandoned and left to decay. And its crumbling walls and overgrown gardens are a sorry testament to the legal battle that seems to have engulfed the place.

Vincente Minnelli made a name for himself in the movie business during the mid-20th century, helming multiple classic musicals. For instance, in 1951 he sat in the director’s chair for An American in Paris – a film that later took home the Academy Award for Best Picture. And seven years later, he repeated that success and also earned the Best Director award for his work on Gigi.

Vincente entered the world in Chicago in 1903 but spent much of his childhood moving around Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Eventually, the family set up home in Delaware, but the future director returned to Chicago after graduating from high school. And it was there that he immersed himself in the theater, taking jobs designing costumes and sets.

Image: Jean-Louis URLI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

This passion for the stage culminated in Vincente’s first directing gig: a musical titled At Home Abroad. The production started in 1935 and ran successfully for two years. Vincente’s reputation flourished in tandem, and in 1940 he took a job at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Studios – cementing his future in the movie industry.

Over the course of his life, Vincente married four times. Indeed, he tied the knot with his first wife, accomplished actress and singer Judy Garland, on June 15, 1945. Like her husband, Garland was involved in many movies throughout her career. She received considerable recognition for her work, too, picking up a Golden Globe and Special Tony among other awards. The star is perhaps known best, however, for her role as Dorothy in 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, for which she earned a Juvenile Oscar.

Garland met Vincente while working on his 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis. And she would go on to collaborate with him twice more over the next few years. The actress found success in the music industry, too, producing a handful of studio albums. In 1961 she even became the first woman to take home the Grammy for Album of the Year. What’s more, two years later, the star hosted an Emmy-nominated TV show called The Judy Garland Show.

Vincente and Garland had one child: Liza Minnelli. Born on March 12, 1946, Liza would grow up to become a star in her own right. Indeed, she bagged an Academy Award for her role in the 1972 film Cabaret and is also widely celebrated for her singing voice. Some of Liza’s more famous performances took place at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall in the late ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s.

But alas, things didn’t end happily for Vincente and Garland. In 1951 the couple divorced, and their struggles were supposedly sparked by Garland’s streak of self-destructive behavior. Wracked by insecurity, anxiety and depression, the actress reportedly took sleeping pills and amphetamines. Eventually, she suffered a nervous breakdown and even made two attempts to take her own life after MGM terminated her contract. The star also started having an affair – spelling the end of her marriage.

Image: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

As previously mentioned, Vincente married three more times before his death, wedding his final bride – Lee Anderson – in 1980. Six years later, the director passed away from pneumonia and emphysema in his Beverly Hills home, aged 83. And in the years since his death, the ownership of his mansion has proven to be controversial.

Image: Dick Whittington Studio via USC Libraries Digital Collections

Indeed, Vincente left his property – said to be worth some $1.1 million at the time – to Liza. But he also left lifetime use of the house to Lee. So, while his widow continued to live there, his daughter apparently paid the bills. Then in 2000 Liza put the house up for sale, apparently without Lee’s knowledge. And as recompense, Liza offered her stepmother a $450,000 condo – yet Lee refused to leave.

Even when the house finally sold a couple of years later, Lee still wouldn’t vacate the property. Liza supposedly responded by ceasing payment of the mansion’s electricity bills, and she also fired the staff who were employed to take care of it. As a result, Lee filed a lawsuit against her stepdaughter, kicking off what would ultimately be a short legal battle.

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The lawsuit in question alleged that Liza had breached a contract and brought emotional anguish upon Lee. Indeed, the court papers ascertained that moving the then-94-year-old “will no doubt be the death of her.” Liza’s 2002 wedding to David Gest added further fuel to the fire too.

Image: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

For one thing, the lawsuit caused Liza to withdraw Lee’s invitation to the wedding. But it was the lavishness of the festivities that apparently drew the most ire from Liza’s stepmother. In reference to the wedding, you see, the lawsuit read, “While the defendant is honeymooning all over the world, having fed 850 of her closest friends a 12-foot cake, [the] plaintiff is alone in a cold, dark house at age 94.”

Image: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Liza responded to the lawsuit in April 2002 – a month after her wedding. Speaking to Army Archerd, who was a writer for Daily Variety, she explained, “My father left me the house, saying, ‘It is my wish if you sell the house that you move [Lee] to a residence.’ I finally got a nice offer to sell it and offered her a $450,000 condo tax-free. She won’t move. I’ve been supporting her forever. I did exactly what my father asked me to do. And now we can’t go into escrow because she won’t move. I am willing to give her a happy life.”

Image: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Despite the fracas, though, the legal battle came to a conclusion fairly quickly. Lee in fact dropped the lawsuit a month later after Liza had reportedly reached out to her and invited her to dinner. The pair then came to an arrangement over the mansion: Liza would pay rent to the new owners while Lee continued to reside in the property. And after Lee’s death, the buyers could finally take full control.

In 2006 – four years after the buyers made their offer – the house finally closed escrow. And three years later, Lee passed away – less than a month after her 100th birthday. It was at this point that the new owners could take residency of their $2.75 million purchase. First, though, they discussed plans to renovate the property.

Ultimately, however, the new owners’ plans seemingly fell through the cracks – and no restoration supposedly ever took place there. And rumored visions to scrap the property and construct a new estate on the same site never materialized, either. As a result, the mansion appears to have since been home only to squatters.

But let’s take a look at the property’s history. The home was first built in 1925, which was around the time that Spanish Colonial Revival architecture was apparently coming into fashion. The hallmarks of that style include smooth plastered walls, terracotta features and flat roofs. However, the mansion was renovated and redesigned between 1944 and 1953 by John Elgin Woolf – this time in the French Louis XV style.

In total, the house – which is situated at 812 N. Crescent Drive, CA – boasts 19 rooms, six of which are bedrooms and another six of which are bathrooms. The mansion is set over around 5,900 square feet on a lot that spans a whopping 42,500 square feet. It’s an enormous space, then, and certainly fit for a celebrity. Vincente moved in shortly after his split from Garland in 1951.

Image: Maureen Donaldson/Liaison/Getty Images

As a child, Liza alternated between living with both her parents. She therefore spent half of the year at her father’s mansion. And she undoubtedly enjoyed her time there. After all, Vincente reportedly adored his daughter. He commissioned an artist called Tony Duquette to build her a huge playhouse in the property’s backyard, for instance.

Image: Time Life Pictures/DMI/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

In addition, Vincente reportedly had multiple outfits fashioned for his daughter, making her house a popular hang-out spot for her friends. And star of sitcom Murphy Brown Candice Bergen recalled as much in her autobiography. She said, “I remember always asking to go to Liza’s to play dress-up because in her closet hung little girls’ dreams.”

Image: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

At the turn of the millennium, the Los Angeles Times profiled Lee Minnelli and painted a grand picture of the mansion in which she resided. As well as describing “python-skin-covered walls” and “vast dressing rooms,” the story highlighted the various designer outfits that hung in Lee’s wardrobes. Her own suite was apparently “smothered by books, papers, catalogs and, of course, many framed photos.”

Image: Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

In fact, even after her husband’s death, Lee apparently changed very little in the home. Vincente’s easel and paint were, for example, said to be exactly where he had placed them. And the house still contained a room showcasing relics from the director’s illustrious career, including his Best Director Oscar that he had won for Gigi.

With all that in mind, then, it’s not hard to imagine that the house was once an impressive sight. Yes, when Vincente first purchased the mansion back in the 1950s, it was likely something to behold, particularly when considering Woolf’s then-recent renovations. Nowadays, though, the property looks much the worse for wear.

The images that are available of the house in its current state, you see, paint a much more depressing picture than what is conjured in the Los Angeles Times article. The years since Lee Minnelli’s death have not been kind to the mansion, it seems. The grass and trees are overgrown and untended, for instance, suggesting that the property has been absent of a groundskeeper for some time.

What’s more, located in among the enormous plot’s untamed vegetation is an outdoor swimming pool. But just like the rest of the property, it’s a shell of its former self. Devoid of water, it looks more like a huge cavern in the ground. Seeing it empty is strangely eerie, particularly when you remember the glamorous people by whom it would have once been enjoyed. Now, the pool is simply a remnant of a time long since passed.

The rest of the grounds aren’t much prettier, either. Debris and rubble are littered around, while marble columns lie toppled and strewn. In fact, such is the state of the house’s exterior surroundings that it’s hard to believe anyone of note ever lived here. You’d certainly never guess that it was once the home of some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Unfortunately, the inside of the house doesn’t spin a different tale. The kitchen, for instance, is in a sorry state. Cupboard doors are torn off their hinges, while drawers have been pulled out and stacked haphazardly. Broken furniture, dishes and other detritus are scattered here and there, and the dirty sink is in desperate need of attention.

The vastness of the property and its general state of abandonment seem to make for unnerving viewing. Yes, there’s an inherently creepy feeling to the crumbling walls that’s palpable even in the images. The parts of the carpet that have remained intact are filthy, and though some sections have been torn away to reveal the old padding underneath, that too is now aged to red dust.

Upstairs, the words “Judy Garland” are scrawled across one of the walls. There’s no way to know who penned them, but it’s not hard to imagine someone getting wind of who used to live here and coming to scribble the name. Regardless, it’s a much-needed reminder of the lofty figures that were once associated with the now-abandoned house.

Really, almost the entire home appears to be in a terrible state of disrepair. There are holes in the walls, doors coming away from their hinges and piles of papers littering the rooms. And while we can’t say for sure, it’s unlikely that the house was in this state when Lee Minnelli passed away. Over the years, then, it has probably been subject to the whims of curious passers-by and squatters.

This sense of squalor doesn’t improve in the master bedroom, either. While some parts of furniture remain, most of it is long gone – including the bed and bedside tables. More trash covers the floor, and the room is horrendously dirty. Plaster is falling from the ceiling, too, and there are yet more holes in the walls.

In other areas of the house it’s more difficult to distinguish the rooms as having any particular uses. In one space, for instance, there’s a bathtub, a mattress and an exercise bike – along with more random objects, such as a fire extinguisher. Given the eclectic nature of these items, it becomes difficult to piece together a coherent image of those who once resided here.

But this doesn’t mean that people don’t try. With the house now abandoned, there’s nothing to stop members of the public from poking around. And that’s exactly what one YouTuber – with the username adamthewoo – did in 2014. During his exploration of the house, he discovered that there’s no running water. That’s hardly surprising, though, when you consider the fact that the home hasn’t been lived in since 2009.

Old television sets and VHS tapes are scattered in another room, along with a multitude of other belongings. Perhaps, then, Liza had no interest in coming back for her or her stepmother’s possessions after Lee’s death. Well, that’s adamthewoo’s theory, which he explained in a post for Abandoned Explorers – a website that’s dedicated to urban and industrial ruins.

“Maybe Liza retrieved some things she wanted from the home, but she certainly wouldn’t be interested in old furniture [or] TVs,” adamthewoo wrote for the website. “So those were probably just left since the house needed a complete renovation anyway, and that was up to the owners.” Alas, it seems that the new landlords never got around to the essential restoration that the house desperately required.

In another room, meanwhile, there’s a fireplace that’s certainly seen better days. However, according to the two guys touring the house in the 2014 YouTube video, there was evidence that it had actually been put to use not long before their visit. This lends credence, then, to the suggestion that squatters have lived in the house at some point since 2009. What’s more, behind this fireplace lies a wall that’s covered in dirty, mirrored glass.

As the video continues, so does the guys’ tour, and on it, they find few traces of the grandeur that the property had obviously once enjoyed. In the dining room, you see, only a few cushions, a couple of chairs and the old TV set remain. And even more random furniture lies askew in other rooms, including a lurid, bright-green couch. Elsewhere, large sections of the ceiling are in fact missing.

Nevertheless, it does appear that some work has actually been done on the mansion since 2009. There are, after all, aerial photos of the property on Bing that show a utility truck and dumpsters parked outside the house. Whatever work was planned, however, clearly never came to fruition. And it’s thought that the local authorities may be preventing the current owners from tearing the mansion to the ground in order to start afresh.

In fact, Abandoned Explorers posited that this may be the reason the home was left deserted. “Was this why it had been basically left open to squatters for years in hopes it would be accidentally burned down or be destroyed by vandals beyond repair?” the author pondered. Whatever the case, the house has again been left to decay – despite once being home to some of Hollywood’s most famous clientele.