Photos of the Los Angeles hillside former convent which Katy Perry is battling with two elderly nuns to buy have been revealed.

The photos taken for the New York Times show the beautiful, 3.2ha former Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in the hills of Los Feliz which boasts spectacular views of downtown Los Angeles.

Perry - a gospel singer turned pop star - is offering an all-cash, US$14.5 million deal favoured by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for the property.

But Los Angeles restaurateur Dana Hollister has a richer deal of US$15.5 million favoured by the nuns who used to live on the grounds, where their motherhouse and novitiate had been based since 1970.

At the centre of the fight, which has spilled into the courts, is whether the archdiocese or the nuns have the right to sell the property, the New York Times reported.

The buildings in the sprawling Italianate complex were designed by architect Bernard Maybeck, who built it in 1927 for Earle C. Anthony, a broadcaster and automobile distributor who died in 1961.

The neighbourhood has a bit of a gory history, said the Times. In August 1969, one night after the murder of Sharon Tate and others by followers of Charles Manson, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were also butchered by the Manson family - and the misspelled phrase "Healter Skelter" was written in blood on a refrigerator - in a home that adjoins the nuns' property.

Perry, a daughter of Evangelical Christian preachers and now a superstar, is reported to have said she wants to live on it with her mother and grandmother, sit in the meditation garden, sip green tea and find herself.