A Frank Lloyd Wright House in L.A. Is in Danger Of ‘Demolition by Neglect,’ Say Advocates

A unique Los Angeles house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is rotting, warping and welcoming wild animals. Built in 1939, Brentwood’s cantilevered Sturges House is one of the legendary architect’s Usonian buildings—his visions of affordable housing. Now, the Los Angeles Conservancy has placed the home on its watch list, reporting that the house is in danger of “demolition by neglect.” “Recent visits by the Conservancy to the Sturges House show the house is in precarious condition,” reads the report.

The long span of the carport is warped, and its distinctive pillars are rotting. Visible open gaps in the siding leave the structure of the cantilever vulnerable, accelerating further damage to this designated Historic-Cultural Monument.” Back in the late 1930s, after creating grand masterpieces like the Hollyhock House and Fallingwater, Wright turned his attention to simpler design. He dreamt up a conceptual nation called Usonia, full of comfortable, well-made, beautiful homes for middle-class people, reported 99% Invisible in 2019.

His first contribution to this mission was the 1937 Jacobs House, a 1,550-square-foot, L-shaped ranch costing just $5,500, in Madison, Wisconsin. In 1938, California engineer George Sturges and his wife, Selma, read about the Jacobs House—also known as Jacobs 1 or Usonia 1—in Architectural Forum. They then commissioned Wright to design their house, on a $10 plot on a steep hill in L.A.

Wright’s apprentice, John Lautner, oversaw the two-bedroom, one-bathroom home’s construction, which finished in 1939 and cost about $11,000. In a letter to Lautner, Wright called the blueprint for the Sturges House “one of the simplest we’ve ever done and one of the best.” Like other Usonians, it was made of local materials—in this case, redwood. And like other Wright homes, its structure was cantilevered, with a 21-foot-long deck stretching over the hillside.

In a social media video, local luxury realtor Tyler Neale calls the Sturges House “a timeless modern masterpiece that seems to defy the laws of physics.” L.A. has many Wright-designed buildings, but the Sturges House is the area’s only Usonian. The Sturgeses sold the home in 1951. It was sold three more times in the 1960s, ending up with Hollywood couple James Bridges and Jack Larson, who hired Lautner to oversee repairs.

In 2016, after Bridges and Larson had both died, the house was purchased by the All Right Now Foundation, a California nonprofit established to preserve the Sturges House. According to the foundation’s website, the Sturges House has not fallen into disrepair. They’ve both been rejected or ignored.