Party of 300, your living room is ready

While looking for a place to live in Bel-Air a decade ago, Deanna DeCherney found a house with an indoor pool and an adjacent 2,000-square-foot room.

DeCherney, an interior designer, had the idea to remove the pool and create a 3,000-square-foot living room.

“So we could have a party for 300,” she said.

The nearly 8,000-square-foot house was designed by A. Quincy Jones -- not to be confused with multiple Grammy Award winner Quincy Jones. Jones was an architect and former dean of the USC School of Architecture and Fine Arts. He died at age 66 in 1979, the same year he designed the home.

“I was looking for an architectural house,” DeCherney said. But the one she found was in disrepair.

She and her husband, Alan, took the house down to its studs and rebuilt it.

About this house: From the front, the house is unassuming. It is behind gates and has a wall of glass facing the backyard with views of the city. The house also overlooks the seventh hole of the Bel-Air Country Club. The DeCherneys built a tennis court and an infinity pool on the 1.1-acre grounds. Sunlight streams into the home through rows of skylights in the living, dining and family rooms.

Asking price: $9.75 million, reduced from $10.5 million. Other asking prices in the neighborhood include $32.9 million for a 4.5-acre building site next door and $30 million for a home across the golf course. The home next door just sold for $25 million.

Size: There are four bedrooms and five bathrooms in 7,647 square feet.

Features: The post-and-beam house has black granite counters and stone, concrete and aluminum floors. There is a master suite plus three bedrooms and five bathrooms as well as a den.

Where: Bel-Air

Listing agents: Drew Mandile, (310) 786-1803, and Brooke Knapp, (310) 786-1802, both at Sotheby’s International Realty, Beverly Hills.

To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, send color interior and exterior photos on a CD with caption information and a detailed description of the house to Ruth Ryon, Real Estate section, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012.