"[3] After Lloyd died, the acreage in the lower part of the estate along Benedict Canyon was subdivided into approximately 15 large home lots.

[4] In August 1925, Lloyd announced plans to build a $1 million estate on the 15-acre site, including a three-story French-Italian Renaissance home, a nine-acre golf course, a 50' x 150' swimming pool (the largest in southern California), an open-air theater, dance pavilion, tennis courts, and bridle path.

The Los Angeles Times published a full-page illustrated article describing it as a "gorgeous fairyland playground" and a "Modern Eden of groves and gardens.

[12] The miniature house had electricity and a kitchen and bath with running water, where the Lloyds' daughter played with friends, including Shirley Temple.

[13]In 1937, Mrs. Lloyd hosted a bridal shower at the estate for Jeanette MacDonald attended by Hollywood's elite, including Ginger Rogers, Mary Pickford, Irene Dunne, Fay Wray, Norma Shearer, Dolores del Río, Loretta Young, Mervyn LeRoy, Ernst Lubitsch, Hal Roach, and Darryl Zanuck.

[15] The area had restrictive covenants prohibiting non-whites (this also included Jews[16]) from living there unless they were in the employment of a white resident (typically as a domestic servant).

[17]: 57  Several published accounts have described Lloyd as a leader or participant in neighborhood organizations around his estate that wanted to enforce restrictive covenants in the area.

Seven firefighters and the estate's head gardener were hospitalized after being overcome by fumes from the burning films and chlorine gas from the pool's water treatment plant.

[13] He also developed an "addiction to stereo that shook the mansion at 3 am with the force of 10 speakers in unison"; the decibel levels caused the gold leaf to fall from the ornate living room ceiling.

"[25] Lloyd left his Benedict Canyon estate to the "benefit of the public at large" with instructions that it be used "as an educational facility and museum for research into the history of the motion picture in the United States.

"[26] For a few years the home was open to public tours, but financial and legal obstacles prevented the estate from creating the motion picture museum that Lloyd had intended.

Among other things, neighboring homeowners in the wealthy community were opposed to the creation of a museum hosting parties and attracting busloads of tourists.

[13] Columnist Jack Smith visited the estate in 1973 and wrote that "time stood still", as Lloyd's clothes still hung in his closet, and the master bedroom and living room "looked like a set for a movie of the 1930s.

It reached the ceiling, a great, bulbous mass of colored glass baubles, some of them as big as pumpkins, clustered together like gaudy jewels in some monstrous piece of costume jewelry.

Restoring everything except the original theater-size forty-rank pipe organ (which remains today behind the walls of the 80-foot (24 m) living room), the Field family replaced all the electrical wiring and plumbing and modernized the kitchens and bathrooms before moving into the estate.