(ARTICLE 1 of 3)

THE OWNER

Aline Barnsdall was a native of Bradford, Pennsylvania. Her grandfather, William Barnsdall, drilled the second producing oil well in the United States, establishing the fortune that would finance Aline's philanthropy and her extensive travels.

Barndsall was an unconventional, independent woman with a passion for the arts. Her interest in the future of the American stage led her to Chicago in the 1910's, where she served as co-director of an experimental theater company. While in Chicago, she met the equally unconventional Frank Lloyd Wright, whose recently completed Midway Gardens she admired.

When a trip to California in 1915 turned Barnsdall's attention to Los Angeles, she hired Wright to help her develop an innovative theatrical community on the nation's cultural frontier.


THE ARCHITECT

Frank Lloyd Wright is America's best known architect. Born in 1867, he lived to be 91, and enjoyed a career that lasted nearly as long as his lifetime.

Prime examples of his work include the prairie houses, the S.C. Johnson Wax Building, Fallingwater and the Guggenheim Museum.

Wright was often absent during the actual construction of Hollyhock House, due to the demands of another major commission, the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan. He therefore entrusted supervision of the Barnsdall project to two young men who would later rank among Los Angeles' most prominent architects: his apprentice, Rudolph Schindler, and his son, Lloyd Wright.

Other Los Angeles projects include the textile block houses: the Ennis-Brown, Storer, Freeman and Millard.


THE STRUCTURE

Hollyhock House is Wright's first Los Angeles project. Built between 1919 and 1923, it represents his earliest efforts to develop a regionally appropriate style of architecture for Southern California. Wright himself referred to it as California Romanza, using the musical term meaning "freedom to make one's own form".

Taking advantage of Los Angeles' dry, temperate climate, Hollyhock House is a remarkable combination of house and gardens. In addition to the central garden court, each major interior space adjoins an equivalent exterior space, connected either by glass doors, a porch, pergola or colonnade. A series of rooftop terraces further extend the living space and provide magnificent views of the Los Angeles basin and the Hollywood Hills.

Selecting a thirty-six acre site known as Olive Hill, client and architect worked together to develop a plan that included a home for Barnsdall and her young daughter, two secondary residences, a theater, a director's house, a dormitory for actors, studios for artists, shops and a motion picture theater.

Because of financial and artistic differences, only the two secondary residences and the Barnsdall home, Hollyhock House, were built.

The house takes its name from the favorite flower of Aline Barnsdall. At her request, hollyhocks were incorporated into the decorative program of the house, and stylized representations of the flower may be found on the roofline, walls, columns planters and furniture.

In 1927, Aline Barnsdall gave Hollyhock House and eleven surrounding acres to the city of Los Angeles for use as a public art park in memory of her father, Theodore Barnsdall. For the next fifteen years the house was home to the California Art Club, which made full use of its dramatic design to stage plays and display art work.

The house was leased again in the 1940's and 1950's by Dorothy Clune Murray's Olive Hill Foundation. In each case, the house was altered to accommodate the needs and tastes of these organizations.

A major rehabilitation initiated in 1974 provided improvements and repairs that helped restore much of the buildings original appearance.

In 1989, the autumnal color scheme of Aline Barnsdall's day was recreated in the living room, and in 1990, Wright's custom-designed living room furniture was replicated and installed in its proper location. Research and restoration remain active priorities for the future.

Today, surrounded by a modern theater, galleries and studios, Hollyhock House comes closer than ever before to realizing its original purpose as the centerpiece of a functioning arts complex. The house attracts thousands of visitors annually, who come from around the world to acknowledge its place in the cultural and architectural history of Los Angeles.

To ARTICLE 2

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Copyright © 2003		Eaglefeather font:  Frank Lloyd Wright Hollyhock House photo:  Mark Willis Stele photo:  Mark Willis