When the Wildings learned that they were expecting their second child (Christopher, who would be born on his mother’s twenty-third birthday, in 1955), they decided it was time to look for a larger home to accommodate their growing family. Elizabeth later recounted the serendipitous way that 1375 Beverly Estate Drive, Beverly Hills, which they moved into in July 1954, came to be theirs:

“...we came across a house high on a hilltop with a ‘for sale’ sign on it. The architect was a man called George MacLean whom I’d always admired. We walked around the outside and peered at it, and then I got brave and we climbed over the wall and trespassed.

“A workman had left a glass sliding door open and we went inside. The whole place was completely carpeted and had running water and somebody had left behind a bottle of sherry, and there were paper cups and we sat on the floor, looked at the view, and there was a record machine so we put records on. We drank the sherry and sat there for a couple of hours and fell in love with the house—explored every inch of it.

“It was indoors and outdoors all at the same time—the outdoors brought inside. One whole wall was built of bark with fern and orchids growing up the bark, and the bar was made of stone. And the fireplace had no chimney. There was a device making the smoke go down under the building and out through the barbecue pit. So it was like a Walt Disney Snow White setting. You really couldn’t distinguish between the outside and inside. And all the colors I loved—off white, white, natural woods, stone, beigy marble. The pool was so beautiful. There were palm trees and rock formations—it looked like a natural pool, with trees growing out of it. It was the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.

“We later took picnics to the house and then it just seemed to belong to us. We knew that somehow or other we had to buy it. But we knew it would be way too expensive for us. We’d never met George MacLean, only heard of him, but we called him and confessed what we’d done. He laughed and said that he would like to meet us. In the meantime, we told my mother and dad what we’d done and about the house. Mother said George MacLean’s first wife had been an old friend of hers, and she had said that George always had to have some kind of focal point, some image or a person to build a house for. Sometimes they were people he’d never met. Then Mother said, ‘Didn't you know? He built that house for you, Elizabeth.’

“That clinched it. We bought it for $150,000 and went way into debt. George became a great friend and godfather to Christopher.”