Los Feliz: Frank Lloyd Wright

Los Feliz is another one of L.A.'s pleasant, walkable neighborhoods that people from NYC and the Bay Area tend to like. Vermont Avenue between Prospect and Franklin has restaurants, shops, cafes, and Skylight Books which, so far, is my favorite book store in Los Angeles. Los Feliz is also home to two large and distinctive houses built by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).

The magnificent Ennis House, built in 1924, is located at the top of the hill and looms over Los Feliz like a futuristic Mayan fortress. It is one of four houses, all in the Los Angeles area, that Wright built with patterned concrete blocks in the early 1920s. The somewhat ominous looking house has been featured in many TV shows and movies including Blade Runner.

In Frank Lloyd Wright's own words: "No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other." Here is the Ennis House rising out of its hill and mirroring the silhouette of the mountains in the background:

The Ennis House has a panoramic view stretching from the San Gabriel Mountains in the East over the entire Los Angeles Basin out to the Pacific Ocean and the Catalina Islands in the West. Here is a view of downtown L.A. from the front patio:

A view over Los Angeles from the side terrace:

The Ennis House is not currently open to the public, however, I was in the right place at the right time and got myself invited into the house during a private tour for some out-of-town donors. The interior of the house is gorgeous but has a slightly sinister feeling. Here are the pictures that I took of the living room and the raised dining room area:

The long, low hallway has layers of the same patterned concrete blocks that form the exterior of the building:

A close-up of the concrete block design:


The exterior windows and interior glass door panels include beautiful art glass in classic Frank Lloyd Wright designs:

This original glass mosaic above the living room fireplace is supposedly the only remaining glass mosaic in any Frank Lloyd Wright house:

The Ennis House includes three corner panorama windows with unbroken views over the city:

The Berendo Stairs lead up to the Ennis House from Los Feliz:



Down at the Southern edge of Los Feliz, the Hollyhock House, a Mayan-inspired concrete home that Frank Lloyd Wright built between 1917 and 1920 for eccentric oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, is less impressive than the Ennis House. However, it is nicely situated on a scenic hill that was previously an olive grove and which is now owned and administered by the City of Los Angeles as the Barnsdall Art Park. In addition to the Hollyhock House, the park includes a gallery, a children's art center, and an outdoor sculpture garden with beautiful views of the city and Griffith Park.

A view of the exterior of Hollyhock House:

The Hollyhock House was Wright's first building in Los Angeles and he experimented with integrating indoor and outdoor spaces to try to find a style that would work well for the temperate Southern California climate. The house is open for public tours, but I only recommend the tour for people who are specifically interested in architecture or Frank Lloyd Wright. The one hour tour that I went on was led by a somewhat belligerent docent and lasted for almost two hours. The house is also not one of Wright's more livable, attractive designs and, in fact, Aline Barnsdall herself only lived in the house for a few years before moving out.


The hollyhock was Aline Barnsdall's favorite flower and she requested that it provide the motif for the building. Here is a detail of the stylized hollyhock pattern that decorates the interior and exterior of the house:

And some actual hollyhock flowers from the gardens:

Another detail from the exterior of the house:


This house, refered to simply as Residence A, is the other original Frank Lloyd Wright structure on the Barnsdall Art Park:

A view of the Griffith Park Observatory from the Art Park:

Walk number 23 in my favorite book "Walking L.A." by Erin Mahoney Harris covers Los Feliz including the Barnsdall Art Park/Hollyhock House, the Ennis House, the Bonvue and Berendo stairs, and the nice part of Vermont Avenue. If you are from Berkeley and feeling homesick, the quiet residential streets off of Hillhurst and Vermont look a lot like the East Bay.


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The Eames House

In addition to creating some of the most iconic furniture designs of the 20th Century, husband and wife Charles Eames (1907-1978) and Ray Eames (1912-1988) built a lovely modern house and studio in Pacific Palisades as part of the influential Case Study Program. Through the Los Angeles-based program, which ran from 1945 to 1966, Arts & Architecture magazine commissioned top architects to design and build inexpensive and efficient modern houses that could serve as models for the post-WWII housing boom.


After building the Pacific Palisades house for the Case Study Program, the Eameses resided in the house from its completion in 1949 to their deaths in 1978 and 1988. The Eames House is one of the Case Study Program's most popular houses and has even been replicated in miniature out of chocolate.

The house was constructed out of pre-fabricated, industrial materials and the Mondrian-inspired exterior is composed of white and primary colored panels of varying sizes outlined by black steel beams:

Twisting bark on a row of large, fragrant eucalyptus trees in front of the house provides an interesting textural contrast with the glass and steel of the structure's exterior:

The two buildings and their adjoining patios are set against an 8-foot high, 200-foot long retaining wall which abuts the hill on one side of a small meadow. The far edge of the meadow ends on a bluff with views over the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Bay.

A view of the house from the top of the retaining wall:

A view from the studio over the little meadow toward the ocean:

The grounds of the Eames House are open to visitors who call in advance to schedule an appointment. The interior of the house is not open to the public, but the living room, kitchen, and dining area are visible from outside through the glass doors and windows. The living room, with its high ceiling, warm rugs, tropical plants, and tall book shelves, is unusually livable and comfy for a modernist house. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take interior photos. Here is the living room from the outside:

The side of the living room as viewed from one of the patios:



A few blocks away from the Eames House, modern treehouse-style homes are perched above little creeks running through the narrow, lush Santa Monica Canyon. Kappe House, built in 1968 on Brooktree Road by architect Raymond Kappe, is the most well-known of these treehouse residences. From the road, the Kappe House appears to be floating above the canyon. Wooden terraces jut out from the house and blend in with the treetops and a creek runs underneath the house on wide, rocky boulders.

Unfortunately, my photos do a poor job of capturing the charm of the Kappe House:

While Kappe's name is not well known among the general population, architects and designers love his houses and the L.A. Times ranked the Kappe House as number 8 on its 2008 list of the best Los Angeles Houses of all time. Also on the L.A. Times list were several other houses that I have visited including the Eames House (#4), the Gamble House (#6), the Ennis House (#3), Hollyhock House (#10), and the Schindler House (#1).

Another view of the Kappe House from the street:

Here is a map with the locations of the Eames House and Kappe House:

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Adamson House: Malibu Tiles

From the 1910s-1930s, hundreds of small potteries sprung up around Southern California to produce the tiles that were used in the era's popular Spanish revival and Mediterranean-style homes. One of the largest and most successful of the California tile companies was Malibu Potteries which operated from 1926-1932 and utilized the region's natural red clay.

The Adamson House is located in Malibu next to Surfrider Beach and is open to the public for tours. The Spanish revival architecture is nothing special, but the house's interior and exterior are decorated with hundreds of beautiful, original Malibu Pottery tiles.

A view of the Adamson House:

The most impressive and best-preserved tilework is in the interior of the house in the kitchen and the 5 bathrooms. Unfortunately, interior photography is not allowed so all of my photos are of the tiles that decorate the various exterior patios and courtyards. Many of the richly patterned tiles are inspired by traditional Spanish and Moorish designs or by Arts and Crafts flower motifs:

Many of these old tiles used toxic substances such as arsenic to achieve vibrant colors and glaze effects.

Individual tiles are set into the thick adobe walls around the doors leading out to the patios:

Here are some details of individual tiles which include flowers and vines, geometric patterns, and some modern designs:

This colorful peacock fountain is on the ground-level patio facing the beach:

A detail of the peacock's head:

A view of the tiles which form the right peacock on the fountain:

If you look closely at the left peacock's tail you can see that one of the tiles was placed upside down:

A hummingbird:

Details of the tilework along the edges of the fountain:

Another peacock-themed piece on one of the side patios:

Here is a detail of the Green Man fountain on the East side of the house. In the chipped section above the Green Man's head, you can see the Malibu red clay used for the tiles:

Below is a map with the Adamson House's location. The lagoon next to the house is full of hundreds of birds that love the mix of fresh water and sea water where Malibu Creek meets the Pacific Ocean. Information about tours and visiting hours are available at the Adamson House website.

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