PACIFIC PALISADES—The German government has purchased the former Pacific Palisades home of novelist, philanthropist and Nobel Prize-winning Thomas Mann for $13.25 million.

Mann was a renowned writer famous for writing literature that opposed the rise of Nazism. He lived in the house from 1942 to 1952 in exile after escaping a Nazi-ruled Germany. During Mann’s time at the house, he wrote literature including part of his 1947 novel “Doctor Faustus” and offered a haven for other exiles who were fleeing Nazism.

The home was designed by modernist architect J.R. Davidson and built in 1941. The Los Angeles Times reported the home was listed for $15 million and was ready to be demolished. An online petition called for the house to be saved from demolition to preserve it as a monument symbolizing resistance to the Nazi regime. The house is now planned to be renovated as an artist residency and meeting place for young writers.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement posted by the German consulate in Los Angeles that the residence was a “a home for many Germans who worked toward a better future for their country, paved the way for an open society and laid the foundations for common transatlantic values.”

The five-bedroom Mann home will be handed over to Villa Aurora, a German government cultural program that will handle the day to day operations.