As a young actress and model in the 1960s, Tracy “Babs” Susman appeared on The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Munsters. She would later go back to school for urban planning and worked in environmental planning, politics, and film production. Another part of her multifaceted legacy is the beachfront home she had built on the California coast in the mid-’80s.

For years, Susman’s sister and brother-in-law had a small rental cabin at Faria Beach, a small unincorporated coastal enclave in Ventura County. When the cabin became available for purchase, Susman bought it and commissioned modernist architect Carl Maston to design a house for her. Maston, an influential figure in the California Modernism movement, applied many of his signature elements to the Susman House: clean lines, natural materials, and easy connections between the interior spaces and the surrounding landscape. After it was completed in 1985, the home was captured on film by the renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman.

Susman died in 2023, and, according to tax records, the house passed to her longtime partner Ian Rosenthal. Now on the market for the first time ever, the home has been well maintained and sensitively updated over the years while retaining much of its original details. Cedar siding on the exterior is also used inside, paired with geometric brick floors and exposed structural beams. A double-sided brick fireplace divides the living room from the family room, with a chic wet bar built into the fireplace wall. There’s a cozy kitchen and dining room spill open to an oceanfront patio.

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Upstairs, the light-filled primary suite, which opens to a private deck with water views, includes a fireside sitting area and a bathroom sporting cornflower-blue tile and a wooden soaking tub. Two additional bedrooms include an oceanfront suite with a fireplace, bathroom, and small balcony. The other has an integrated privacy divider and a white-tiled bathroom nearby.

The Susman House is listed for $5.1 million with Chuck and Shannon Menzel at LIV Sotheby’s International Realty. Its location, on the northern end of Mondo’s Cove, affords it sweeping 240 degrees of Pacific Ocean views, with the Channel Islands visible in the distance.

Click here to see all the photos of the California beach house.