The Lovell House at 4616 Dundee Drive in Los Feliz is often described as the first steel-frame house in the United States. Neutra built it that way not because residential contractors were accustomed to it — they were not, and no residential contractor would take the project — but because he was. His earlier work with the Chicago firm Holabird & Roche had familiarized him with steel construction. He served as his own contractor for the Lovell House.

The structural system uses open-web steel joists and four-inch-square steel posts at five-foot intervals. The porches and balconies hang down from the roof level rather than supporting from below, giving the house its characteristic quality of appearing to float. The exterior features horizontal bands of metal lath with white stucco — the visual rhythm of International Style modernism made literal in the facade's alternating verticals and horizontals. It was included in the Museum of Modern Art's landmark 1932 exhibition that defined the International Style to the American public.

Philip Lovell's health philosophy shaped the design in specific ways. The house includes outdoor spaces dedicated to sunbathing, a rooftop solarium, and rooms designed to maximize UV exposure — Lovell believed in heliotherapy, the medicinal use of sunlight, and wanted a house that made sunlight available in ways that conventional residential design did not. The Lovell House was among the first in Los Angeles to include spaces for nude sunbathing and outdoor exercise.

Inside, the 4,800-square-foot three-story structure contains a library designed for over a thousand volumes, with adjustable shelving and a 52-foot lighting trough. The main staircase is wide and open, connecting floors through a space with floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows and views of the city. A fireplace at the center allows guests to sit between the warmth of the fire and the panoramic view of the evening skyline. Neutra installed two Ford Model-A headlights in the main stairwell as a deliberate nod to industrial production — the headlights were provided by Neutra's apprentice Gregory Ain.

The Lovell House was a turning point for Neutra's career: it established him as a major figure in American modernism and attracted the attention of architects and critics internationally. Photographs taken by Willard Morgan were included in the 1932 MoMA exhibition, making the building's appearance widely known.

Lovell paid his contractor $58,672.32 for the completed house; his own recollection of the estimate was $37,000, his wife Leah's was $48,000. The discrepancy was never resolved. The house was purchased in 1961 by Morton and Betty Topper and added to the list of Registered Historic Places in Los Angeles in 1971. In 2021, art dealers Iwan and Manuela Wirth purchased the property for $8.75 million. The house appeared in the 1997 film L.A. Confidential as the home of a character played by David Strathairn, and in Beginners (2010). It sits on a hilltop in Los Feliz with views that still justify the difficulty of building on steep terrain.