Steve Vai has put his Los Angeles property up for sale – and it comes complete with the electric guitar virtuoso’s famed Harmony Hut home studio.
As reported by the Robb Report, Vai purchased the Encino home for $1.2 million 30 years ago, and promptly turned the run-down shack at the end of the backyard – which had once been the residence of gardener, who died in the space some time in the past – into the ultimate guitar paradise.
Article continues below“The house itself was vacant for 10 years before we bought it, but there’s two acres of land so we saw the potential,” Vai wrote. “There was a gardener that lived in the little shack out back while the house was vacant for 10 years. The poor guy died out there and was not discovered for 2 weeks when the neighbors noticed a funny smell. Ah, a perfect place to make beautiful music, right?”
Nonetheless, Vai gave it a much happier next chapter – reinvigorating the building and turning it into a light-filled home studio space.
“I added a small room to it and bumped out the front and put in a huge window, so now when I work at the desk I can look out over the backyard and see the kids, the sun, etc,” he continued. “It’s a very comfortable environment with various fabrics on the walls and colored tiffany-type lamps that set the room in a warm glow…”
It became something of a sanctuary for Vai, who used the fully functioning studio extensively to write and record. He also filmed live performances there, and ended up working on The Story of Light and Modern Primitive.
It also became a safe space for his comprehensive guitar collection, with a huge array of builds hung up across the wall.
During a studio tour video posted to YouTube last October, Vai showed off some of his Harmony Hut collection, which included guitars personally gifted to him by the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, Mick Mars and Frank Zappa.
There’s also Vai’s first-ever electric, his Whitesnake Ibanez, the three-neck Heart guitar which spurned an absurd arms race with Michael Angeo Batio, and more.
Unfortunately, the listing doesn’t include the guitar collection, so any prospective new owner will be left with plenty of empty wall hangers to fill with their own guitars.
Head over to Sothebys Real Estate to explore the full listing.
