The lives of the rich and famous are rarely as glamorous as advertised. Their homes, however, often live up to the billing.Courtesy Carolwood EstatesHollywood has always been obsessed with appearances. In the studio era, romance was something cast, polished and, when necessary, rewritten. Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor's marriage was reportedly one such production. She was Hollywood’s whip-smart queen of noir, amassing nearly 90 film credits and, by 1944, becoming America’s highest-paid woman. He was a matinee idol with looks so immaculate his nickname was “The Man with the Perfect Profile.”Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor represented the height of Hollywood fame. On paper, their union made perfect sense in every way but the important one: love. Still, they found themselves sharing one of Los Angeles’ most enviable homes.Los Angeles Public LibraryIt was Hollywood at full tilt. The Wizard of Oz. Gone With the Wind. MGM had become the dream factory of American cinema. Off-screen, however, the studio was busy with some other acts of pretending.The trouble began with a fan magazine. Photoplay’s feature Hollywood’s Unmarried Husbands and Wives outed several of the era’s most bankable couples—Clark Gable and Carole Lombard among them—for the crime of cohabitating without paperwork. Within months, MGM married off Stanwyck and Taylor under the cloak of night. What followed was 12 years of the most convincing marriage, one that many believe was never truly cast by love. But behind the carefully staged photographs and magazine covers sat a very real house. Today, that Holmby Hills estate has returned to the market, asking $39.95 million. Its architecture, much like its previous owners, has a penchant for misdirection.A broad expanse of lawn here offers more than greenery. It offers profoundly pleasant privacy.Carolwood EstatesThe first secret is easy to miss. A detached guest house, tucked so deftly beneath vine-draped stonework that it reveals itself only after you’ve nearly walked past it. In many ways, it sets the tone for everything that follows.A mahogany-paneled library conceals a screening room behind its walls, while two hidden doors dissolve into the millwork, one opening onto a private wet bar. It’s easy to picture the clink of cocktail glasses here after supper. Hidden behind secret doors in the library, a screening room gives the house an appropriately cinematic twist. Robert Taylor counted Ronald Reagan among his closest friends, close enough that the future president delivered a eulogy at Taylor's funeral in 1969.Carolwood EstatesThe eccentricities continue upstairs. A multi-panel Chinese screen disguises a study. An outdoor terrace is accessible only by passing through one of two adjoining bathrooms. Future owners could rearrange the labyrinthine layout to make rooms for additional bedrooms, says listing agent James Harris of Carolwood Estates. Yet it’s these peculiar moments that give the house its personality.The fireplace and beamed ceiling keep the mood intimate. The room’s proportions, meanwhile, are generous enough to let a party divide itself naturally.Carolwood EstatesNot that the primary suite lacks for comforts. Occupying its own wing, it’s comparable to a private apartment, complete with a carved stone fireplace, dual dressing rooms, two soaking baths and a sauna. Perhaps most delightfully, there’s an antique barber’s chair tucked into its own grooming alcove. Old Hollywood enough yet?The craftsmanship throughout belongs unmistakably to another era. Hand-hewn ceiling beams span the formal rooms while wrought iron traces elegant scrollwork along the staircases. Masonry fireplaces anchor the principal living spaces with an almost monastic solidity. One of two soaking tubs faces the terrace, inviting equal allegiance to indoors and out.Carolwood EstatesFrench doors stretch along the bedroom, lending openness to an otherwise intimate retreat.Carolwood EstatesThen the house changes again. Down a sequence of barrel-vaulted brick arches you find a billiards lounge and a bar evoking the feeling of an old Tuscan cantina. Behind thick walls, a wine cellar shelters bottles against the heat. Continue a little farther and you’ll stumble across something far less romantic: a bomb shelter. Even Hollywood’s grandest estates weren’t immune to the anxieties of the late 1930s. An original elevator still serves every floor—including the attic—for anyone willing to trust 90-year-old machinery.A bar and a billiards room. Consider it double indemnity.Courtesy Carolwood EstatesIf the interiors were designed to keep the world at bay, the gardens do the opposite. More than an acre of mature grounds stretch into broad lawns, vine-covered pergolas and a Baja-shelf pool that spills into a weathered stone waterfall. The former screening room now serves as a gym. But if dumbbells aren’t your preferred method of staying fit, a tennis court still carries floodlights of an intensity Los Angeles no longer allows for matches long after dusk.It wouldn’t be a proper Los Angeles hideaway without a pool. This one has the good sense not to be a boring rectangle.Carolwood EstatesThe house isn’t even the street’s only monument to a marriage that didn't survive it. A few doors down is the former home of Fanny Brice, purchased by Robbie Williams in 2022. A mile away sits Owlwood, once incidentally the home of Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis (no connubial connection), which outlasted Sonny and Cher by decades. In a Hollywood house of such historical significance, there's a secret to discover behind almost every door.Carolwood EstatesFor some golden couples, it turns out, time brings tarnish. The houses they leave behind—full of hidden doors and secret rooms built for keeping things from each other—appear to win in the longer run.Priced at $39.95 million, the listing for 423 N Faring Road is held by James Harris and Sam Collins of Carolwood Estates. Carolwood Estates is a member of Forbes Global Properties, an invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.