Music Man Makes a Quick Hit

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Six months after Cameron Strang, chairman and chief executive of Warner Bros. Records, bought an architecturally interesting home in Rustic Canyon, he sold it at a blockbuster price—complete with city permission to tear it down and rebuild.

The 3,400-square-foot “post and beam” home was designed in 1956 by noted firm Buff, Straub & Hensman and owned by the same family for almost seven decades, according to city records.

The residence sits on two acres of mature sycamores and oak trees with views over the canyon.

Entered through a Zen-styled courtyard, the single-story house has floor-to-ceiling walls of glass and clerestory (above the eye line) windows.

There are open fireplaces and a secluded pool in the backyard.

But all this may soon be gone.

Permits to demolish the home, the detached garage, pool and landscaping were granted by the city last November, around the same time as Strang was buying the place.

Strang worked with pop artists such as Cee Lo Green and Bruno Mars on his own record labels before joining the venerable Warner music division with his current title six years ago.

It is unclear whether he moved into the home, for which he paid $6.5 million.

Now he has sold it, in an off-market deal, for $9.3 million.

The buyer is Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of Riot Games, which employs 1,000 people in nearly a dozen countries from Germany to Japan. Its major shareholder is a Chinese company.

Riot produces multi-player battle games such as “League of Legends,” where individual tournaments in online arenas can last for an hour or more.

That is longer than it may take to demolish the 62-year-old house.