Growing up in Beverly Hills, California, with a father who was a music industry legend and a mother who was a philanthropist and consummate dinner party host, Nicole Avant had a front-row seat — at a 12-seater antique wood table — to history.

Muhammad Ali, Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Withers, Sidney Poitier, Hank Aaron and Don Cornelius were regular guests who were always offered her mother’s signature drink, kir royale.

But what Avant remembers most about her childhood home is passing the history on what her family called “the Great Wall,” which served as a space to honor Black entrepreneurs, lawyers, scientists and professors at historically Black colleges and universities.

“George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, everybody was part of the wall,” Avant said. “My mother wasn’t waiting for me to go to school in the hopes that the school would honor Black history. Black history was taught at home. Every day before I walked out into the world, my mother wanted me to know the shoulders I stood on.”

Atop those shoulders, Avant served as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas under President Barack Obama, and she is a film producer whose recent project, “The Six Triple Eight,” picked up an Oscar nomination for best original song. The film won the NAACP Image Award for most outstanding motion picture in February.

After her mother, Jacqueline Avant, was killed in a home invasion in 2021, her father, Clarence Avant, moved in with her and her husband, Ted Sarandos, who is the co-CEO of Netflix. And she told Avant, the former chair of Motown Records, to bring his favorite objects with him. “I wanted to help him heal,” Avant said. “I wanted him to be able to walk into every room in this house and see something that he was proud of so that it could feel like his house and also remind him of the life he created with my mom.”

That began the transformation of Nicole and Ted’s 15,000-square-foot Tuscan villa in the Hancock Park neighborhood of Los Angeles into a home that honors her parents’ values and memories. Objects from the Great Wall, which was at the entrance of her childhood home, are now displayed throughout the home.

Tucked into a built-in bookshelf in the library is a photograph of Frederick Douglass next to a handwritten letter that the celebrated orator and political theorist penned in 1877. The piece, once a part of the Great Wall, was one of Clarence Avant’s favorites. “This letter was one of the objects he wanted because he loved Frederick Douglass. He considered him one of the greatest men in American history. He would always say, ‘People really need to celebrate him. So, keep him up, Nicole. Keep him up so you can look at him every day and remember why you are here.’ ”

“The Magic Room,” a two-story banquet hall, got its name from actor Melanie Griffith, who lived in the mansion for 16 years with her then-husband Antonio Banderas before selling it to Avant and Sarandos for $15 million in 2015.

The moniker is fitting, given the box-beamed ceilings, hand-painted frescoed walls and iron stained-glass windows.

“I loved the idea that there’s magic in this house, so we kept the name,” Avant said.

Several busts are displayed in the room, which now serves as a salon, including “The Angry Christ” and “Paul Robeson as Othello,” by sculptor Richmond Barthé. There is also a bust of Duke Ellington, a gift from Quincy Jones to her father, which was the first thing people saw when they entered Avant’s childhood home.

“My father loved everything about Duke Ellington,” Avant said. “He was actually listening to him with Ted when he passed away.”

Built in 1925, the home was designed by Gordon Kaufmann, a British-born American architect behind the Greystone Mansion and the Hoover Dam. The five-bedroom, 10-bathroom house also has a nickname, “the Netflix Embassy.”

Following in her mother’s steps, Avant, too, has become a skillful party host.

She and Sarandos often host star-studded events and fundraisers at the estate.

“We have parties here to celebrate art and to celebrate culture. Not to celebrate fame,” Avant said.

“It’s interesting because when I was young, I would complain to my mom and say, ‘Why are we always having people over to the house?’ ” Avant said. “I fought that so much when I was little, and then, of course, I ended up having the same life.”

But that life is now in Hancock Park, not Beverly Hills.

Developed in the 1920s, Hancock Park boasts mansions designed by world-renowned architects that have attracted society’s elite for over a hundred years.

“My parents wanted to buy a house in Hancock Park because Nat King Cole lived here, and he told them, ‘You must move here. There are the most beautiful homes,’ ” Avant recalled. “But then they found the house in Beverly Hills, and my dad loved it there. It reminded him of his home state, North Carolina. But my mom was always obsessed with Hancock Park.”

Avant was equally enamored, particularly with the architecture and artisans. “I thought if Ted and I ever get an opportunity to live in a space that presents such creativity and focus to the craft, I want to be a part of that energy,” she said.

Avant and Sarandos previously lived in Beverly Hills, which is 5 miles west of Hancock Park. “Ted was not on board when I told him I was looking at this house,” Avant said. “Ted was not on board when I told him I was going into escrow. Ted was not on board because Ted is a fixed sign. He is a real Leo.”

Avant’s parents continue to be her guiding force. She honored her father with the documentary: “My father deserves all the credit he received for changing people’s lives,” she said.

She honored her mother with a book, “Think You’ll Be Happy: Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude.” Her mother’s last words to Avant were sent via text and read: “Think you’ll be happy.”

“Jacqueline Avant lived a meaningful, significant life and made positive changes for so many years and the last thing I wanted was — there was a home invasion, it went wrong and that’s it,” Avant explained as she stood beside her office desk, which was covered with her mother’s belongings including a Lalique Buddha statue and a lacquer box.

“I was like, no way. This woman gave us too much,” she said, adding later, “She created a safe haven for Black people to come and laugh and celebrate and cry and share fears and frustrations.”