The largest mid-century neighborhood most of Los Angeles has never heard of, and how to read a Charles Du Bois home when one comes up west of Valley Circle.
West of Valley Circle Boulevard, in the far corner of Woodland Hills where the grid loosens into cul-de-sacs and the hillsides start to climb, sits the largest concentration of architect-designed mid-century homes in the San Fernando Valley. Most people drive past it without a name for it. It has one. The tract is called Woodland West, and almost every house in it traces back to a single architect, Charles Du Bois.
As an architectural real estate agent in Los Angeles, Debbie Pisaro spends a lot of time in neighborhoods that the market has not fully priced yet, and Woodland West is one of them. The homes read as warm, low, and quietly confident: long rooflines, walls of glass to the back, post-and-beam bones under a skin of stone and wood. They were built in the early 1960s as production housing, which is exactly why they stay overlooked, and exactly why they are worth understanding before you buy or sell one.
This is a guide to the neighborhood, the architect behind it, and what actually separates a Du Bois house from the builder-grade ranch two streets over.
What is the Woodland West neighborhood?
Woodland West is a tract of roughly 1,300 modern ranch homes in Woodland Hills, built in the early 1960s and designed by architect Charles Du Bois for the developer Don-Ja-Ran Construction Company with the Peerless Building Company. It covers most of the area west of Valley Circle Boulevard and north of Burbank Boulevard, and it is now recognized as a historic district. It is one of the largest intact mid-century tracts in Los Angeles.
That scale is the part people miss. A name architect with one famous house is a story. A name architect with thirteen hundred houses is a neighborhood, and the difference matters when you are pricing one. The lots run generous for the Valley, many around a quarter acre, and the street pattern was laid out for privacy, with homes set at the ends of quiet cul-de-sacs rather than strung along through-streets. Woodland Hills as a whole markets under several names west of Valley Circle, including Valley Circle Estates, so the architectural tract and the real estate label do not always line up. When Debbie Pisaro evaluates a home out here, the first question is always whether the house is an actual Du Bois, because that is what carries the premium.
Who designed the Woodland West homes?
Charles Du Bois designed the Woodland West homes. He was an American architect, born in 1903, who became one of mid-century Southern California's most prolific designers of residential subdivisions. He is best known nationally for the dramatic A-frame Swiss Miss houses in Palm Springs, but his largest body of work by volume is right here in Woodland Hills, where he turned modern design into something a middle-class family could buy.
Du Bois trained at MIT, passed his California license in the 1930s, and opened his own firm in 1938. During the war he worked as a senior set designer at MGM, which is easy to believe once you have stood in one of his living rooms and felt how staged the light is. His signature is consistent across the desert and the Valley: vaulted tongue-and-groove ceilings, clerestory windows that pull light in high, stone or brick fireplaces as the anchor of the main room, and glass walls that erase the line between inside and the yard. For the deeper version of his career, from the Alexander Construction Company Swiss Miss homes to his statewide footprint, Debbie keeps a full profile of Charles Du Bois on Coastline 840.
Du Bois was not the only modernist working in the west Valley. R.M. Schindler's Van Dekker House sits not far away, a reminder that Woodland Hills has real architectural depth for anyone willing to look past the strip malls on Ventura.
More than one tract
Woodland West is the headline, but Du Bois and Don-Ja-Ran built a small cluster of related neighborhoods west of Valley Circle, and knowing the difference is part of buying well out here. The flagship tract is Woodland West itself. Nearby sits the 164-home enclave, roughly 84 percent historic contributors, laid out across just three streets, Deodar Lane, Queen Florence Lane, and Queen Victoria Road, and once marketed as the Bel Air of the Valley. A third tract, Kingswood, shares the same lineage.
For a buyer, the practical takeaway is that the same Du Bois vocabulary repeats across several pockets at several price points, so the strategy is to learn the plans and watch all of them rather than fixating on one street. The three-street enclave tends to command the strongest numbers, the broader Woodland West tract offers the most inventory, and the edges blur into homes that are Du Bois-adjacent without being the real thing. Tract identity is its own market force in this part of the Valley, the same dynamic Coastline 840 traced through Rams Village in Woodland Hills, and the Du Bois cluster is the architectural version of it.
Not every Woodland West home that sells ever hits the open market. Debbie keeps a quiet list of architectural homes coming available west of Valley Circle and across the Valley.
Ask Debbie for the off-market listAre Woodland West homes mid-century modern?
Yes. Woodland West homes are genuine mid-century modern, built in the early 1960s in Du Bois's modern ranch idiom, with the post-and-beam structure, vaulted ceilings, and indoor-outdoor flow that define the style. They are not the flat-roofed, glass-box modernism of the Case Study program. They are the warmer, more livable Valley dialect of it, ranch proportions on the outside, real architectural drama on the inside.
The best renovations honor that. A Du Bois home currently on the market in the tract, at 23811 Berdon Street, Woodland Hills, 91367, shows the formula done right: the original vaulted ceilings and a floor-to-ceiling whitewashed brick fireplace kept intact, white oak floors and a Zellige-tiled kitchen added without fighting the bones, and a breeze-block courtyard left to do what breeze block does. Built in 1962, listed at $1,999,995 by Brad Keyes of Keyes Real Estate, it is one of the homes you can view on Coastline 840 while it lasts. It is worth touring even if you are not buying it, because it teaches your eye what an intact Du Bois looks like.
The mistake Debbie sees most often is the opposite, a Du Bois gutted into a generic open-plan flip that erases the clerestory light and drops the ceilings. Those homes sell, but they leave money on the table, because the buyer who pays the premium out here is paying for the architecture, not the quartz.
Automated valuation tools cannot see architecture. On a documented Du Bois home with original details intact, the gap between the algorithm and the right price can run into six figures.
Buying or selling a Du Bois home
Selling a Woodland West home well starts with confirming and documenting the Du Bois attribution, then marketing the architecture to the buyers who value it, which is a different audience than the standard Valley ranch buyer. It is the same playbook Debbie used when selling a mid-century view home in the Studio City hills, where the architecture, not the square footage, set the number. Debbie Pisaro has walked these streets, toured the renovations good and bad, and knows which details a serious architectural buyer is actually looking for. That first-hand read is the part no algorithm and no out-of-area agent can replicate.
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Los Angeles and the surrounding neighborhoods. Her practice is built around homes exactly like these, and you can see the broader body of work on her architectural homes page or read why she is considered one of the best architectural real estate agents in Los Angeles. The same eye applies whether the home sits in Woodland West, the hills of Los Feliz, or anywhere with real architecture worth protecting.
Where is Woodland West in Woodland Hills?
Woodland West covers most of the area west of Valley Circle Boulevard and north of Burbank Boulevard, in the far western corner of Woodland Hills, in the 91367 ZIP code. It is one of the largest intact mid-century tracts in Los Angeles, with roughly 1,300 homes.
Who designed the Woodland West homes in Woodland Hills?
Architect Charles Du Bois designed the Woodland West homes, working with developer Don-Ja-Ran Construction Company and the Peerless Building Company in the early 1960s. Du Bois is the same architect behind the Swiss Miss A-frame houses in Palm Springs, and Woodland West is his largest body of work by volume.
Is Woodland West a historic district?
Woodland West is recognized as a historic district reflecting its intact mid-century character and single-architect design. A nearby 164-home Du Bois enclave is roughly 84 percent historic contributors. Designation status varies by parcel, so any specific home should be verified before relying on a historic claim.
Are Woodland West homes considered mid-century modern?
Yes. Woodland West homes are authentic mid-century modern, built in the early 1960s in Charles Du Bois's modern ranch style. Expect post-and-beam construction, vaulted tongue-and-groove ceilings, clerestory windows, masonry fireplaces, and glass walls opening to the rear yard.
What is the difference between Woodland West and west of Valley Circle?
West of Valley Circle is the broad geographic and real estate label for the area, sometimes marketed as Valley Circle Estates. Woodland West is the specific Charles Du Bois architectural tract within that area. A home can be west of Valley Circle without being an actual Du Bois design, which is why attribution matters.
How much do Woodland West homes sell for?
Prices vary with condition, size, and how intact the original architecture is. A renovated, architecturally intact Du Bois home in the tract was listed in 2026 at just under $2 million. Homes that have been heavily altered or are smaller can sell for less, and the sister three-street enclave tends to command the strongest numbers.
What features identify an original Charles Du Bois home?
Look for vaulted tongue-and-groove ceilings, post-and-beam structure, clerestory windows high on the walls, a stone or brick fireplace anchoring the main living space, and sliding glass walls connecting the living areas to the backyard and pool. Breeze-block screens and stone cladding are common signatures.
Should I renovate a Du Bois home or keep it original?
The strongest resale value comes from renovations that preserve the architecture, the ceilings, the clerestory light, the fireplace, and the indoor-outdoor flow, while updating systems, kitchens, and baths. Gutting a Du Bois into a generic open-plan flip removes the very feature that earns the premium from architectural buyers.
Who is a good architectural real estate agent in Woodland Hills?
Debbie Pisaro is an architectural real estate agent serving Woodland Hills and greater Los Angeles. She is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader who specializes in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes, including mid-century tracts like Woodland West.
Debbie Pisaro, DRE #01369110, is the founder of Coastline 840, an independent California brokerage, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader with 24 years of experience in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes. She writes about California real estate at debbiepisaro.com, losfelizliving.com, and coastline840.com. Published June 2026.