Frank Lloyd Wright’s Beloved Hollyhock House Reopens After Two Years
After a two-year closure brought on by the pandemic, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House is open to visitors. One of eight designs by Wright in Los Angeles, it’s his first for the city, built between 1919 and 1921 for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall. It’s also L.A.’s first and only UNESCO World Heritage Site, a title the home earned in 2019.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House was commissioned by Aline Barnsdall, a wealthy oil heiress and arts patron who held the dream of having a live-in venue to produce her own avant-garde plays. Wright wanted the design to be defined by the region and take advantage of Southern California’s temperate climate. To do this, he made each interior space echo an exterior space in the form of a pergola, porch, outdoor sleeping area, glass door, and rooftop terrace that looks out to the Hollywood Hills and the Los Angeles Basin.
Returning guests to East Hollywood’s Barnsdall Art Park, where the landmark home is located, will notice some improvements. During its closure, the home underwent a number of conservation projects, including the restoration of its art-glass balcony doors and bas-relief fireplace, which brings together classical elements of earth, air, fire and water.
The home’s guest house, known as Residence A, also saw a significant restoration, from its exterior stone to its cantilevered balcony.
The home’s previous restoration in 2014 focused on repairing structural elements like a leaky roof, and addressing deferred maintenance of its fenestration and wood detailing.
In an attempt to create a strong connection to nature, Wright incorporated outdoor sleeping porches on all five of the home’s bays.
The home gets its name from Aline Barnsdall’s favorite flower, the hollyhock, which was incorporated into the detailing of the home.
This view from the living room looks southeast, with a garden court beyond.
Self-guided tours start August 18 and run weekly Thursdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. To celebrate the reopening, the home is throwing a lawn party this Saturday, hosted by the City of L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) and city councilmember Mitch O’Farrell.
The community event also marks the long-awaited reopening of the DCA’s other facilities in Barnsdall Park, including the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre.
Advance tickets can be purchased through the home’s website.
Ornate windows slide open to connect the interiors to the central courtyard.
The detailing inside reflect Wright’s Prairie houses, and includes built-in furnishings, a substantial amount of wood throughout, and art glass. The dining set was also designed by Wright and features a low seat and straight back—both signs of the Prairie style—but also boasts the hollyhock motif on the spine of the chair and the table’s pedestal.
The living room glows in afternoon light. Aline Barnsdall deeded her 36 acres of land, on which Hollyhock House sits (now known as Barnsdall Park) as well as its Frank Lloyd Wright–designed structures as a permanent home for the appreciation of art and architecture to the City of Los Angeles in 1927.
With the approval from Barnsdall, Wright incorporated Japanese influences throughout, including a set of authentic 18th-century Japanese screens. However, since the originals were stolen during the house’s dark years, the ones seen here are reproductions.
Since Wright was simultaneously working on the Japanese Imperial Hotel, he incorporated many Japanese details in the design of the Hollyhock House. Along with the Japanese screens in the living room, he also proudly placed a Buddhist sculpture at the end of a long hallway that’s lined with art glass.
A rug designed by Wright features the hollyhock motif with a range of bright colors. The original rug (this is a reproduction) was built as one large piece that covered the living room and the extended spaces surrounding it. The fact that there was no seams and that it was laid in one piece made it a work of art on its own.
Barnsdall only allowed Wright to design the furnishings for two of the rooms, including the living room and the dining room. The rest of the house was filled with items she had collected throughout her travels.
One of the standout moments in the space is the cast concrete fireplace, which is considered to be one of Wright’s greatest two-dimensional works of art. Depicting an abstract landscape, the detail is spectacular, yet leaves much to the imagination while incorporating a bit of the hollyhock flower. Wright completed the fireplace with a skylight above and a moat in front that was designed to hold a pool of water. This was originally part of an elaborate water scheme to run throughout the property, though it was never completed. Regardless, the fireplace thus incorporated the four elements of nature: light, earth, fire, and water—making it a brilliant vision, even if it never ended up the way it was fully imagined.
The Hollyhock House was one of the last residences where Wright designed a comprehensive art glass window scheme that’s carried throughout the residence. Throughout the property, there are 130 windows.
The hollyhock motifs lining the exterior of the building were thought to have been created on-site by combining dry natural materials with water into a mold that would then form into the desired shape. The use of clay created the look and feel of concrete, and the design is reminiscent of pre-Columbian indigenous architecture.
The exterior grounds of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House.
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