Posted on 07/31/2009 9:47:39 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
A rare opportunity to live in a national landmark has arisen in Los Angeles where Ennis House, an architectural gem designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, has gone up for sale for $15 million.
The architect designed Ennis House in 1923, dubbing the stark, concrete block-clad mansion his "temple on the hill" and predicting that it would still fascinate people a century later.
It offers wonderful views across the city and, with its exotic, Mayan temple exterior and cathedral-like interior, it has featured in more than a dozen films including Blade Runner, The House on Haunted Hill and Black Rain.
The 10,000 sq ft house was originally built for Charles Ennis, a local businessman, and it remained in private hands until 1980, when it was donated to a charitable trust.
But maintaining the house is expensive, so now the trust has decided to sell it.
The building developed structural problems even before it was completed and has since been seriously damaged by earthquakes and rainstorms.
It was given a multi-million dollar overhaul, but the three charities that oversee the house agree that the new owner will need to have deep pockets.
"What this house offers, really, it's a trophy property. Some people have trophy wives – this is a trophy house," Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, told National Public Radio.
Aaron Kirman, a local estate agent, said the house had already attracted considerable interest but the vendors would wait until they found the right buyer.
He said the majority of people who have expressed interest "have multiple homes, in different cities, more or less all over the world".
Lloyd Wright, who designed the Guggenheim Museum in New York, seemed particularly proud of the Ennis House.
"He said, 'You know, 100 years from now,
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
As always with him, looks good (well, not this one) but not built to last.
The Guggenheim is the only thing he built that I find interesting...this one is ugly. (In my humble opinion)
I worked on his personal home, which I considered a mausoleum !
My sister in law owned a home he deigned in Saginaw Michigan which i didn't consider anything spectacular except for the 12 foot high triple plate glass wall in the living room.
That Ennis house is one ugly joint, a kid I grew up with lived next door.
Always liked the early plains school. His later stuff was a bit too “modern”.
Amazing. I am a huge fan of both Blade Runner and the architecture of Wright. When I was watching the scenes around Deckard’s apartment I said to my wife that it HAD TO BE inspired by Ennis House. Little did I know that it WAS Ennis House.
But my favorite is still Falling Water.
/johnny
Frank Lloyd Wright?
Looks more like something made from Legos...
Maybe Brad and Angie should buy it. It looks big enough for their family. LOL.
Maybe, but how much would you pay to live in the original exterior House on Haunted Hill? (which is made even weirder because the studio interiors in the movie look like high Victorian and don't match the exterior shots at all>
Fascinating! I am a fan of architecture, so I find FLW, very interesting, although his work is not my style- too cold.
You said it first, so I won't have to. Actually, Legos would look better--more colorful.
If I were Mr. Wright, I wouldn’t claim that design. And I like some of his other designs, although they tend to be on the cold side.
Now THAT’s ugly. It looks like an overgrown bunker.
I have always been fascinated by Wright and his creations. That said, I do see a real downside. First, so many of his exotic buildings had problem from the start. Actually, even before the start. His stuff was a little like an early Corvairre: Really cool but leaked oil right out of the factory.
He also could not hang on to money and he was an unbelieveably arrogant SOB.
Nevertheless, he did some amazing stuff and his designs are still my all time favorites.
This place reminds me of some cars (like Rolls Royce, for example) that many would say is ugly, until you’ve owned it and experienced it. I think it would be an awesome place to live. What I could do with those rooms, those decks, etc. And the glass!
You entered off the street through a tunnel and then up an elevator to the house.
The entire house was dim and dingy and certainly didn't reflect his other way out designs of the era.
I remember one evening he came to the house during WW2 and pleading with my dad to build the way out religious place in Yucca Valley and my dad flat out told him he had too many jobs on military establishments and support industries to even consider it. He must have been there until midnight pleading with him.
Mayan revival.... hot
>>Now THAT’s ugly. It looks like an overgrown bunker.<<
But in the GOOD way!
I don’t know if that is the only stamped-concrete-block house in LA, but I recall reading about either the subject house or the other one (if there IS/WAS another one) maybe 20 years ago. It was an utter wreck; the conc blocks had deteriorated badly in smoggy LA of the 50’s-60’s-70’s, the roof leaked, the beams were rotten, there were huge pools of fetid water on the floor, etc; etc; etc;
I don’t know if the rehab work has been done at this $15 MM price. But a buyer could be really, really limited as to what types of heating and a/c could be put into such an historic bldg. IIRC, when I read about it, there were no takers at $600K.
That’s Frank Gehry. :)
ping
It's needed a lot of renovation for various structural and age related problems.
If I were only rich, I would buy it, tear it down, and build something nice looking.
Nevermind, he did the one in Spain!
You are so lucky to have known him
:O) OK
Which home? The one in Phoenix or the one in Wisconsin?
You could never get the environmental permits to build that today.
P.o.S.
$15 Million too Steep? You can spend a night in the Inn at Price Tower for about $150.00 for a double Queen.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Price_Tower_-_Bartlesville.jpg
The Price Tower is FLW’s only skyscraper and it is in Bartlesville, Oklahoma of all places. It is a little gem of a building that an an oilman had Wright build in the fifties. It had shopping, offices and apartments all contained in the one site. It was Wright’s vision of the future. (Kind of silly in a small city on the plains with plenty of room.)
Anyway, Off Topic a bit.
Oldplayer
From Oklahoma
I never understood what it meant to be ahead of ones time until I toured a Wright home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was nearly 100 years old, yet was someone modern. Certainly was a change from Italianates, Greek revival and Queen Anne.
This house is in the Los Feliz neighborhood. East of the Hollywood sign and below the Griffith Park Observatory. I have driven by it many times.
If I had the money I would buy it in a heartbeat. It probably still needs a few million in renovations to bring it back to its original luster.
That house has no problem a little dynamite wouldn’t cure.
How can the trust ditch the house? Usually a trust is required to hang on to something like that as a condition of it being put in trust in the first place.
“Which home?”
Los Angeles, Los Feliz area.
Doesn't seem like much of a trophy to me, nor does it speak well of Wright's architectural ability, since it had structural problems even before it was completed. Sheesh! I can design a bad house. It seems that this is a bad house designed by a famous name.
Of Blade Runner so am I...and it has that other LA architecture (an Sifi) icon, Bradbury Building
Maybe Wright was a true innovator, but he seems to have designed a lot of stuff that was crap under its “innovative” veneer. His personal life also seems to have been crap. He is not my vision of Howard Roark, no matter what Ayn Rand thought. I would not want my kids to be anything like him.
Class trip there in the 5th grade. Started my fascination with Frank Lloyd Wright.
Probably his ugliest building ever.
“My absolute favorite Wright home, Falling Water:”
Ahhh! Now that’s more like it!
I stayed there. The manager had a sense of dark humor and stuck me and my father on the 13th floor.
My wife and I recently toured northern Iowa looking at Wright homes. In Mason City, IA is a 1903 Wright home and one of two Wright designed hotels, now being restored. There are also two other Wright designed homes in that part of the state.
“It had shopping, offices and apartments all contained in the one site. “
FLW was corrct - see Crystal City, Tysons, and Skyline in NVA.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
