Jean Harlow photographed in the sunroom inside her Beverly Glen Mansion circa late 1933 or early 1934:
Seldom talked about, this relaxed, all-white space was profiled by Detroit Free-Press columnist Aileen Spafford in July 1934:
“Jean Harlow calls her new home ‘Hollywood’s White House’—not that she has any political inclinations, but just because white is the predominating factor in the color scheme of every room.
In many of the rooms other colors furnish pleasing contrasts to the white, but in the sunroom little else is used. Here even the brick walls are white-washed to match the white woodwork and paneling and the many window openings are hung with white Venetian blinds. How refreshing this conspicuous absence of draperies must be on a sultry day. For most people will agree that, when the world outside is like a furnace, there is nothing nicer than simple Venetian blinds which can be adjusted to the tiniest fraction of an inch.
The room is furnished in a comfortable fashion—deep upholstered chairs and couches, convenient tables and nearby lamps. And all the furniture coverings are white with bandings of dull henna red. On one wall a gilt and white mirror is flanked by shell-shaped wall brackets of white pottery. These are filled with long branches of ivy and the tables hold other white bowls in which tall, green, spiky things are growing.
The entire scheme is just as simple and unpretentious as can be—and one, too, which could be duplicated in dozens of other homes throughout the Country. It would be especially delightful for an upstairs sleeping porch if the owners wished to use it as a sitting room instead of sleeping quarters.
The card table set up permanently in the corner would be ideal for family breakfasts, informal luncheons or tea. And the extravagant use of white makes it the perfect room for summer. Then, if one preferred a change, colorful draperies and slip covers for the furniture would completely transform the place during the wintertime.”
Harlow and her mother and stepfather had started work on her platinum blonde home at 214 S. Beverly Glen after the death of Paul Bern in 1932; she sold it, after moving on from the shade of hair, to producer Nat Levine in 1936. In the interim, though, Harlow and Co. went to town on applying a matching all-white gloss to their custom-built creation. ‘Biographer’ Irving Shulman, as terrible an author and person he was, might have been on to something when he referred to Beverly Glen as a ‘press agent’s dream in white satin and gilt’. The decor was something right out Bombshell (1933) and photos retain some of the same over-the-top energy in the film.
As for the house today, it’s privately owned and intentionally invisible from the street. It’s been restored to much of its former glory in red brick, though touches remain, like Jean Harlow’s monogram in the balcony grillwork above the front entrance, and the pool, the shape of which curious Google Earth users will find unchanged as of 2026.
Harlow Heaven 