Santa Monica Property Blog

ENNIS HOUSE

LEGACY ASSET FOR SALE - FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S ENNIS HOUSE

Asking price $7,495,000

By Jodi Summers

Now is the time to shed those legacy assets that lie in neglect. It began when Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger proposed to sell off some California’s most valuable and cost intensive legacy assets, like the Del Mar Fairgrounds and the Memorial Coliseum. Now private parties are doing the same.

If you have an estimated $20 million – give or take, you can buy and restore Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Feliz, and make Los Angeles a better place. Experts estimate that purchase and repairs pencil out in the neighborhood of $17 million - $7.5 million to buy the property, $9.5 million to renovate, less grant money, give or take any given set of issues. But the results will prove to be a significant architectural monument. Think Falling Water…

The Ennis House is a brilliant blend of Mayan temple and Italian villa in high deco style. It has been noted that some of Wright’s most engaging and innovative architecture was done in Southern California in the years following the end of World War I. From 1919 to 1923, the architect worked part-time in the blooming metropolis of Los Angeles. Our fair city was enjoying a tremendous economic boom thanks to entertainment, the automobile and the petroleum industry (i.e. Hollywood and El Segundo). In a span of only 4 years, Wright conceived a uniquely monumental, adaptable and efficient textile block design which redefined impressive architecture. (Think the Arizona Biltmore or the Eastern adaption - the Imperial Hotel in Japan.)

“What about the concrete block?” Wright has asked. “It was the cheapest (and ugliest) thing in the building world. It lived mostly in the architectural gutter as an imitation of rock-faced stone. Why not see what could be done with that gutter rat? Steel rods cast inside the joints of the blocks themselves and the whole brought into some broad, practical scheme of general treatment, why would it not be fit for a new phase of our modern architecture? It might be permanent, noble beautiful.”

Located at 2605 Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz, designed in in 1923, and built in 1924; the 4 bedroom, 4 1/2 bathrooms home with separate chauffeur’s quarters designed for clothier Charles Ennis and his wife Mabel. The entrance fondly recalls Falling Water and other Wright designs where the entrance is obscured, inviting visitors to interact with the house from the beginning. It is trademark Wright that the entry space is dark, with a low ceiling, allowing a dramatic entrance into the light and bright space.

Like the Biltmore, the Ennis House has a long horizontal loggia complimenting the pool and connecting the public and private rooms. The Ennis House design features soaring, sunlit interiors enhanced by architectural details such as soaring wood-beamed ceilings. You will delight in the elevated dining room with a massive fireplace, anod feel so special in the living room complimented by Wright’s signature prairie-style leaded art glass, mitered windows. The windows are an abstract pattern of the wisteria plant, and are the last art glass windows Wright designed for any residence—he later used wood with cutout designs.

It has been said that the glass-tile mosaic fireplace in the living room is one of only four ever created and the last remaining intact example in any Wright residence. The flowing multi-tiered floor plan offers an exclusively designed kitchen, pantry, guestrooms, master suite; as well as an upper terrace with guest suite and Japanese garden. The home is sits on approximately three-quarters of an acre, and offers extraordinary city, ocean and mountain views.

Architectural details include high wood-beamed ceilings, art-glass windows, a window-lined loggia looking out on the pool and a glass mosaic-tile fireplace in the living room. There is a billiard room, bar, library, den, office, pantry and basement. Chauffeur’s quarters, with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and living area, are above the four-car garage.

From afar, the Ennis House can be seen from Vermont Avenue, looking north, completing its ridge on the southern reaches of the Santa Monica Mountains. The Ennis House is the fourth and most monumental of buildings by Wright in northern Los Angeles constructed mostly of interlocking pre-cast concrete blocks - “textile block” style.

The signature design is said to be inspired by the symmetrical reliefs of Mayan buildings in Uxmal. You will notice it as the prominent relief ornament on the property’s textile blocks, Be sure to note that the textile block pattern is almost symmetrical along the diagonal.

“The textile block method of construction consisted of stacking concrete blocks three inches thick, cast in molds, next to and atop one another without visible mortar joints. In all but the Millard House, thin concrete and steel reinforcing rods were run horizontally and vertically in edge reveals ‘knitting’ the whole together. A double wythe was common, held together by steel cross ties, the cavity air space serving as insulation.” - William Allin Storrer. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright: A Complete Catalog.

“You see, the final result is going to stand on that hill a hundred years or more. Long after we are gone it will be pointed out as the Ennis House and pilgrimages will be made to it by lovers of the beautiful from everywhere.” — Frank Lloyd Wright in a letter to The Ennis’, 1924

It is noble, and quite beautiful, but permanent? Remember, we mentioned an estimated $15 million in repairs. The Ennis House is on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2005 list of the 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

How can this be?

A statement on the Ennis House Foundation Website - http://www.ennishouse.org - reads:

“After serious consideration, the Ennis House Foundation has decided to place the Ennis House on the market for sale to a private owner. This decision stems primarily from the fact that the house needs more stewardship at this point than a small nonprofit can sustain.

“One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most ambitious homes, the 1924 Ennis House in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles has been put up for sale. The home on a hilltop has a striking composition of patterned and smooth concrete blocks that give it the apeparance of an ancient temple. The private foundation that has been restoring the home has put it up for sale for $15 million. The LA Times reports that Eric Lloyd Wright, the architect’s grandson and a member of the nonprofit Ennis House Foundation’s board,has said that the board decided that private ownership would be the best way to save the house. The house was donated to a nonprofit trust in 1980 and the foundation began its restoration in 2005. The home had sustained damage both from rain and the 1994 Northridge earthquake.”

Legend has it that even before its completion the Ennis House was marked by structural instability. Concrete blocks cracked, and lower sections of the walls buckled under tension.

Additionally, the use of decomposed granite from the site to color the textile blocks introduced natural impurities to the concrete mix, and combined with air pollution caused premature decay. To add to the mess, attempts to apply a protective coating caused additional decompositions issues. The situation was compounded with the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the record rainfall of the 2004-2005 rainy season. After the rains the building was briefly red-tagged (no entry into the building) and as of late 2005 was still yellow-tagged (limited entry) with significant damage to the retaining wall at the southern rear of the building. The Trust has estimated that it could cost $5 million just for stabilization costs, and $15 million for full restoration.

In 2006 a FEMA grant was issued as well as a $4.5 million construction loan through First Republic Bank which restarted restoration efforts. The project included a new structural support system, restoration/replacement of damaged blocks, restoration of windows and a new roof. Restoration was completed in 2007; however no announcement has been made regarding access to the public. The Ennis is currently being offered for sale to a private owner at a listed price of $15,000,000, listed with Hilton & Hyland and Dilbeck Realtors locally, and Christie’s Great Estates internationally. The SoCal Investment Real Estate Group at Sotheby’s International Realty is prepared to assist you in the purchase of the property. Please contact Jodi Summers at 310. 392.1211 or jodi@jodisummers.com for more information.

The residence has changed hands seven times since it was sold by Mabel Ennis in 1936, following Charles’s death in 1928. Various owners have contributed their individual imprints, but the original design has remained largely intact. The house has not been lived in since 1980, when the Browns (the then residents) donated it to the Trust for Preservation and Cultural Heritage. It was used to film a number of pictures, including Blade Runner, Grand Canyon and The House on Haunted Hill, as well as TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twin Peaks and South Park.

After building the Hollyhock House in 1921, his first project in California, Wright set out to create 4 more homes in the Los Angeles area using his new “textile block” system of cast concrete blocks. In addition to the Millard House and Freeman House, he built the Storer House at the west end of Hollywood Boulevard (bought and restored in the 1980s and still in private hands), and the Ennis House. Unlike the other textile-block houses, interior details of the Ennis House, such as light fixtures, were not designed by Wright. Wright’s relationship with Mrs. Ennis was strained and Wright left the project before completion.

Please note that the house has a conservation easement to protect it from demolition or insensitive alteration, and to guide future restoration, preservation, and maintenance efforts.