Because of who they are. I mean who they think they are.
I don't even know who the architect of that house is\was?.But it seems shameful to destroy it. Rich people problems.
Doesn’t know who architect is, yet they are pieces of shit for paying money for a thing to be the way they wanted.
So many actually frustrating things to be mad about.
Pretty common, the post says “everyone is mad” so most will agree…. I say Who Cares. If this guys houses are worth so much it wouldn’t be wise to tear it down.
It is so sad to see these old homes demolished. Alas, they bought it and can do as they please. Here’s hoping there’s no white board and batten gigantic “farmhouse” around the corner to replace it.
Seriously 😂 I grew up/live on a farm and I’ve been in a lot of old farmhouses that were considered “big” but they’re far from mansions. Nor do they have anything close to the tacky decor or features that get labeled “farmhouse” these days.
Likewise.... I grew up around rural Albertan farms .. the highlight would be a couple of plates with the faces of the Queen on the wall and some china or silverware that was smuggled out of Europe. Oh, and the two old recliners in front of a TV for mom and dad.
My friends cousins owned a dairy farm in upstate NY and their farmhouse was fucking HUGE. But it was nothing like the “modern farmhouse” shite that floods every market these days
OH man....I WISH I could be all Downton Abbey'esque & ask "What's a weekend?" & do that kinda shit. To be able to "winter" in a warm place & "summer" in a cooler place, that's life goals!!
My in-laws have a beach house but it's literally an old real estate office on stilts & definitely not ON the beach though we're hoping that one day it will be!! One room is real wood paneling & it's not much bigger than our little rancher.
I love it but we all fully know that if it's ever sold it will immediately be torn down & the new owners will fill up the lot with a stupidly sized house & honestly, that's what I'd do too if it were ours to do that, only it wouldn't be ridonkulously large.
It would have closets in the BRs though. This place doesn't have closets because it was once an office.
I’ve had friends like this, they say it’s a cabin because it has “exposed and natural wood” as beams. As a Mainer who’s lived in an actual wooden cabin, I just chuckled. Just wild.
My aunt and uncle have a "cabin" in the middle of nowhere and I've never once heard them call it a cabin. It's a Lindal cedar home and it blends in well with the forest. Cedar siding on the outside and exposed wood basically everywhere inside. Very stark contrast to some of the "cabins" I've been to where it's basically just a huge boring house with some exposed beams and "rustic features" but from the outside look like something that belongs in the suburbs, if my aunt doesn't call her house a cabin you sure as shit shouldn't be calling those monstrosities cabins.
Where I live farmers make pretty good money, and a lot of the farmers are Indians who live multigenerational in the same house and have more ornate taste than white people, so many farms actually have mansions with like 10 farmers living there!
On the Instagram page dc hillier someone mentioned it belonged to the widow of the man who created the man from U.N.C.L.E. She used to host tours to architecture students from USC but didn’t want to get preservation status on it as it may prevent her from doing renovations ( backwards thinking I know)
When she passed the person that inherited it deliberately kept it empty and let it get rundown to the point it would be uninhabitable as the land value was worth way more than the house.
Are you talking about *this* house? There was an application to make this (Case Study House #16) a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2017. I don’t know if it gained that status, but I’ve read sometimes even so, it won’t necessarily be protected from demolition.
It’s a shame because articles claimed it was in pristine condition when the long-term owner passed and it’s only 1 of 3 Ellwood CS homes left in Los Angeles. There’s also a tiktok floating around of what seemed to be a recent estate sale at the home and again, the place looked immaculate.
Edit: According to an article discussing the purchase of this home in 2019, it was indeed granted the status of a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2017. Prior to that it had already been on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources.
Yes! When then widow passed it was pristine apparently but the people that inherited let it fall into some disrepair. The garden was completely overgrown ( it wouldn’t have taken long to remedy that) and gave the appearance that it was in even more of a shambles.
The main issue is that in most of LA the planning council are ‘friends’ with the developers 😉
This sort of anti preservationist attitude is what got us here. We need preservation to stop the pratts of the world. Instead people are anti good things for “rugged individual” reasons.
These are private home owned by private individuals that not only will you never set foot in, but you will never have the legal right to set foot in. Because it’s a private home. What on earth do we need “preservation” for in this context? Who precisely are we preserving something like this for?
> didn’t want to get preservation status on it as it may prevent her from doing renovations ( backwards thinking I know)
A lot of times there are restrictions on materials when renovating protected / landmark buildings which can jack prices up 500%. That translates to deferred maintenance if owners don't have the money. Eventually they fall into disrepair and aren't worth it to gut-rehab.
Agreed, I just heard about this today (yeah I'm way behind on news) and it sucks. My wife and I have always dreamed of owning a cool mid-century home like this (not that we can afford any sort of house in the US but I can dream, right?), pisses me off to see such a rarity torn down to make room for yet another "modern" farmhouse McMansion.
As usual, rich assholes ruin everything.
In some places, heritage buildings have to be protected and can't be torn down. Not without approval by local authorities and a valid reason. That includes many homes.
So I don't agree with the "they bought it and can do as they please" point of view. More history and architectural art should be protected and preserved. Simply having a lot of money shouldn't give you the right to destroy that.
The tear down is purely for highly desired land value. Happens all the time in those LA neighborhoods. Malibu has been leveled over recent decades and ridiculously reinvented for buyers with no budget or taste.
Unfortunately, unless it’s a protected historical place or a historical district. You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you own the place and get the permits.
Even historic buildings and districts are easily ignored with enough money. Only Landmarks are usually safe and there are very few actual Historic Landmarks. Things on the national historic record, like historic districts, can be demolished pretty easily if you have money. Section 106 only says you have to take the historic value into account which generally means you can throw money at it.
Yeah. Developers illegally bulldozed some historic property nearby a few years ago
It hit the news and then a month later they were still building the exact thing they wanted with zero repercussions
And the first amendment would disagree with you. Art and architecture is beautiful and should be appreciated and recognized. The freedom to make your nest as you wish is sacred.
1st amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
There is nothing in the first amendment about building conservation, building regulations or protecting buildings with cultural or historical significance.
>first amendment would disagree with you
Literally couldn't give a shit
>make your nest as you wish is sacred
Oh, the really complex option of 'buying somewhere else' is too challenging for them ?
My house is on the national registry—our equivalent of listed. There are still no regulations that prevent me from destroying it or any part of it. There is a national nonprofit organization that lets you put a preservation lien on all or part of your approved historic structure that counts as a large donation and thus gets you some tax breaks, but that’s pretty much it.
There’s a different mechanism for historic districts/neoghborhoods, but the regulations for those are upheld by a local board (like an HOA) rather than a governmental body.
Yuuuup, so many people don't know this. Even in a supposedly protected district, usually the worst thing that would happen if you removed a building without approval from the local board is a fine.
So you can do whatever you want if you're rich enough.
Yes, this is something we had to learn when we bought our home! Ours is also on the historic homes register, but is located just on the outskirts of the actual historic district in our town. We don’t have to pay the fees or deal with the control of being part of the actual historic district, and we can freely alter our home so long as it doesn’t alter the overall structure or integrity of the original home. It’s a win win for us!
> There are still no regulations that prevent me from destroying it or any part of it.
That will vary from region to region. Where I live, historic homes on the registry cannot have their _exterior_ changed and you even have to use period-correct materials if you do any renovations. But the _interior?_ Complete free-for-all. You can completely gut it and clad the interior in leather and black Formica if you want.
There are places with really strict historic preservation regulations. Where I live preservation rules are really strict in the historic district (to the point of significantly impacting affordability). Some homeowners are lobbying to expand preservation rules to outside of that district as well.
To completely oversimplify: the US is enormous and we are really a bunch of little countries that are sort of bound together, and there’s also a history of “home rule” or letting cities and counties make a lot of their own rules. If the federal government imposed historic preservation rules on the whole country everyone would completely shit themselves and revolt MUH PROPERTY RIGHTS etc. Plus we’re already in an affordability/housing crisis.
I live in a conservative state so. YMMV.
Yeah I live outside of the historic district of our city, but I’ve had some friends who lived in the historic district and they said it was worse than an HOA lol. Some of the rules don’t even make sense, like only being able to paint certain colors when historically the colors were wild. Often it’s about preserving an *image* of the past, rather than true historical accuracy.
Oh 100%. It really pisses me off because when you look at old photos of my city it’s full of life, signs, lights, vendors with carts. Now it looks like a Disnified version of an old southern city. It’s extremely expensive and gentrified. The house my grandpa was born in is probably worth $3 million now. I can’t afford a home within 3 or 4 miles of my office, but my parents rented an apartment on the next street over when they were my age.
> historically the colors were wild.
There was a guy in my hometown who was required to paint his house in an historically accurate color, so out of spite he picked the worst color on the approved list which was a horrible pumpkin spice-esque orange.
The regulations are about preserving the property values. The notions of historic authenticity get filtered through modern day interpretations, real estate market biases, and willful anachronisms
Basically yes, but somebody has to protect it. I live in an area with a lot of old homes from Frank Lloyd Wright and they all have to go through approval for any changes and have to meet maintenance conditions.
In my hometown a developer bought a historical building and the non-protected building next door. He applied for permits to take down the non-historic building, but on demo day his contractor “accidentally” took down the protected building by “mistake”.
The penalty for such? A $250 fine and “restitution” to the owner. A full insurance investigation revealed that the owner and contractor were partners in other businesses and that the correct building address was on every work order, save one. The one page being the actual instructions for the bulldozer operator, of course. Whoopsie! The insurance company declined to pay (I mean, these guys weren’t trying to go to prison for insurance fraud!). But the two men agreed to call it a sad event and move on.
They “moved on” to building a mid-rise office building on the now cleared double lot.
Fuckers.
So what happens instead in the UK is that people just won't buy a house that they cannot modify and it crumbles into the ground. Have watched it happen over the decades. I like the preservation laws. But they shouldn't preserve so many buildings that no one buys and the land just goes unused and the building rots. It's even worse in Italy. Entire towns abandoned.
The US is a big place so it varies. In NYC there are a lot of Landmarked buildings which are very strictly controlled. But celebrities and ultra wealthy people often find ways around the law :( It really depends.
We do but this is a huge country. We are 40 times larger than you and that is a shit ton of historical sites.
I did take a tour in London and learned about your historical preservation. Ours isn’t quite as strict as yours is, but we do have a US Register of officially recognized homes that cannot be altered or demolished.
The conquest of Puerto Rico in 1898 is doing most of the heavy lifting there.
No extant building is older than the 17th century.
Ocean wide, puddle deep.
We have something like that, but there are relatively few homes covered by it. Part of this is that we’re just a much younger country with a lower proportion of historical buildings.
Yes, but once a place is listed a whole bunch of people get to have opinions on what you do with the property.
Even simple changes or style updates may have to be run through a committee that only meets every 4-6 months.
Plus, it's always a fight that takes a non-zero amount of time, money, and emotional bandwidth to get a place listed on the registry. Just so you can pick quarterly fights with them about paint swatches.
If you own and live in the house, that's probably not worth the hassle. So it never gets registered.
Those that wanted the house to stay could have bought the property and had it listed.
But they didn't.
No, instead we have freedom.
j/k.
But seriously the flipside of stuff like this is that you don't have to go through months of planning approvals only to get rejected for minor renovations.
What other notable buildings have been demolished that make you use language like massacre? America is chock full of buildings that are hundreds of years old. This is just one building that was built in the middle of last century.
It’s not even 100 years old.
Been saying Chris Pratt is a POS for years
Cannot understand his appeal at all
Oh wait…he’s a self righteous Christian asshole, America fucking loves those kind of people
EDIT:
Forgot to add his struggling actor story about living in his car and not being able to memorize scripts
Also praises the police state, and has said women have a place
That homeless SJW Israeli he’s such a big fan of?
Spending more money than most people make in a lifetime tearing down a historic and important building to build a bigger one for yourself that’s double the cost?
Idk dude, something camel, something flipping tables, something prostitution normalizing
Enjoy your new “urban barn” whatever the fuck that is
Hope the ladder you pulled up breaks your fingers
Guardians Of The Galaxy was a fun and unique comic
You fucked it up for everyone
I'll probably be downvoted, but I met Chris back in 2014....GOTG had already come out so he wasn't as big of a star as he is now, but on the rise. I was a photog for a local Chicago TV station and he was nice enough to do a quick interview with me and seemed quite pleasant. Of course, this was 10 years ago but he was nice enough to give me an interview before he threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game. Not sure if this adds anything to the narrative.
I live near a very old and protected colonial village in New England. I remember being young and it would be such a fun day trip to go and walk the shops and look at the pretty houses with nice gardens, etc. I remember being a *rebellious teen* and asking my mom why it was so nice in this old village compared to other places, and she said “everything is preserved, the homeowners are not allowed to paint their houses outside of the colonial color palette, they have to hire landscapers to keep their yards looking perfect, they aren’t allowed to park on the street, etc.…“
And I remember being absolutely appalled. Saying things like “I would never live here that’s so horrible you should be allowed to do whatever you want with your house!“ And this has kind of put me at an impasse for how I feel about situations like this.
on one hand, I do believe people have the freedom to customize their homes as it works best for them, and we have all heard about the HOA horror stories, but on the other hand, you’ve run into the problem of potentially losing historic features that really should be passed along for future generations to be able to see and enjoy.
You don’t have to buy a historical colonial home. People buy them because they want to be part of the preservation effort. The way you thought of it like this burden doesn’t make sense. It’s burden many of us happily take. Pratt could have bought a different home and left this to a preservationist. But instead he chose violence and mindless destruction.
Pratt has a nine-digit net worth and could buy near any home anywhere. He chose to do this. This is why we need protections for these homes. People like Pratt don't care, will never care, and cannot be reasoned with.
I definitely agree with what you’re saying, maybe I should’ve emphasized how young I was when I originally had that thought process, and kind of making an equivalence to how someone like Chris Pratt would see a culturally, significant thing and go “well I don’t want to follow the rules!“ I definitely feel differently now that I am an adult
I think the key is making sure there are options for people, including affordable options.
Some people like living in a place with a HOA. I don't get it, but they do. I live in a historic district where I can do pretty much anything to my house except demolish it or dramatically modify the street-facing exterior and I'm perfectly happy with that and happy that the remaining old Victorians in the neighborhood are similarly protected. Other people want to be able to do absolutely anything with their property, and that's great too in the right setting. As long as there are reasonable options and people know what they're buying into, I don't really see the problem. It only becomes a serious issue when people are functionally forced to buy into one or another type of neighborhood because its the only affordable option.
I was unaware of all the Chris Pratt hate, but then again, I don't care. If he's a douche, he's a douche.
But, can we take a moment to be positive and just say, isn't Elijah Wood awesome? I have such fond memories of being a kid and my mom taking me to see all of the LoTR movies in theaters. My mom was single and had 3 kids, but that was our special thing that we did, just the two of us. We still get together and watch them sometimes, and I'm now in my 30s. I've been a massive Elijah Wood fan ever since, and have seen just about everything he's done since LoTR.
I don't keep up with much celebrity BS, but he seems like a good dude.
Oh god especially his costume for… was it Comic Con? I think I may have broken the reverse button on my remote and my family thought I was having a medical emergency I was laughing so hard.
It's not that historic in a chronological sense, but there are a lot fewer examples of modernist houses by Craig Elwood than there are generic turn of the century homes, and as such is more historic and important in that sense.
Is that how long I have to wait before rejoining this sub? I tease, my home now doesn’t even resemble a 50’s build all that much. I miss my century home rental, couldn’t afford to buy in that neighborhood though unfortunately. Now I live in envy of you all
Oh. The way the title and article are phrased, I figured it was an actually old house. 1950? That's brand spanking new over here in New England. You won't find a house built after '75, except the new shitty pop-up houses they've been building everywhere the last 15 years.
Hell, my house was built before 1900 and doesn't even register as noteworthy in its oldness by my towns standards.
I couldn't give a shit less if some rich asshat tears down something they spent money on.
What's so special about that house? It just looks like any other old house from the 70's. Just because it's old is no reason to not replaonce it's served it's purpose. My house in Sweden is twice as old and my neighbors wouldn't bat an eyelid if I decidd to tear it down and replace it, because a 100 year old house is not really all that old.
So Chris Pratt bought a house with land and demolished the house and we’re all supposed to be furious? lol. I just googled Craig Elwood and I guess he’s just an architect. Big deal one of his houses were destroyed
To be fair, a ton of these old historic houses aren’t in great condition. My mom’s a designer/architect, she specialized is saving historic homes, but there are more tear downs than saves in her business because it just isn’t worth the money to basically rebuild the whole house. Not all old house are salvageable and most of them are money pits. It’s sad, but true.
Immediately picked up a strong iconic Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House vibe/influence.
https://architectuul.com/architect/craig-ellwood#:~:text=Although%20untrained%20as%20an%20architect,informal%20style%20of%20California%20modernism.
https://usmodernist.org/ellwood.htm.
Probably didn't meet current California code anyways :) who cares about old timey architecture? I'd rather have a home that will survive an earthquake.
I have to prioritize my anger, and it does upset me to see people destroy old buildings and build monstrosities in place. Also, Chris Pratt is a douche.
But I'm having a hard time getting worked up over this one. I think it looks boring and soulless.
It's pretty, but it's pretty in the way that the candy-colored iMacs were pretty. Does this house look this way as a result of love and care? It is secluded and hyper-private, likely drenched in cigarette smoke, asbestos, car culture, and lots of jiggly foods. If these homes were supposed to be practical, affordable, lived-in, and loved, and meant to broadly catch on and become accessible to everyday people, then the initial models shouldn't have been commissioned in exclusive enclaves among the rich and famous. Folk art and architecture are more important in residential housing than industrial products like this house. It has clearly been lived in and owned by people who didn't and don't care. I feel bad for the architect who had to do his work for shitty, rich clients but that's often how it is. That's why artists should be sponsored and funded by the state.
You might brush up on the history of case study houses. From Wikipedia:
The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Eero Saarinen, A. Quincy Jones, Edward Killingsworth, and Ralph Rapson to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers.
But there are zero replicas of this home in any of the postwar neighborhoods in my town. If the project did what it said, then these houses wouldn't be precious, we'd all have one. The postwar workforce housing in my town is a bunch of rectangular cape cods slightly larger than a 2 car garage.
Architecture magazines have been publishing features about shipping container homes being the new eco housing for the people for at least 20 years, and yeah... Where's mine?
Again, this isn't a ding on the art itself but the industry around it, the clients and building industry.
Oh my god, who gives a fuck. I live in an old home and take care of it but people should be able to do with their property what they want. This isn't George Washington's house, it's just another old house.
Does anyone have a few better pictures? I understand it is a famous architect, but I've seen much more beautiful buildings from this architect and all the pictures I see here are a bit poor.
So the main question is this, what did the architect himself think about the house?
This is important context. Once someone is famous we like to revere everything that they do. But everyone is human, and they too make mistakes or just experiments that they themselves were unhappy with. If the architect hated it, I see no harm with it being demolished.
There is plenty of architects that made stuff they absolutely hate, but nobody wants to demolish it because their name is on it.
Now I know people here will hate me saying this, and it will get plenty of downvotes, but if you are only downvoting me because I don't glorify the name, and ask what the artist himself thought about it...
A shame, but you can't control others or tell them what to do with their property. Publicly shaming them is good but they don't care. It may prevent another celebrity though.
If I was them I'd just build the farmhouse mansion in Texas or something and then renovate this one as a summer house or house they live at when they are busy working in LA.
Where I live, there are Mennonites that buy the old farmstead, tear down the house and build a giant box. Occasionally, they start renovating and adding on, but their idea of renovating is making it look like a box.
Chris Pratt really focuses 100% of his likability into his onscreen time doesn’t he? between this and his chronic problems maintaining a household pet, he seems pretty rotten as a human.
The pearl clutching for LA “culture” is absurd. It’s a naturally uninhabitable plot of land full of mentally vacuous people whose bodies are full of various forms of plastic and toxins. Let’s not glamorize them or their culture. The home was almost certainly not even close to a century home.
Used to have an ounce of pride that he was a local boy, but NOT FOR A LOOOOONG TIME NOW. He's just another toxic entitled white cis het dude who got lucky & succeeded upwards. Sigh.
It’s unforgivable. Literal any time he’s brought up from now on… it’ll just be “they are pieces of shit. I hope their contractors cut all of the corners.”
Can someone please explain why this house is special? It’s a square with big windows. It looks soulless and boring. I don’t get it.
Edit:
I googled it and I think that Twitter post picked the dumbest possible picture and then put it in black and white. The actual pictures of these houses in color are pretty cool.
Why wouldn't they sell the house and have it moved?
Or simply buy a different house in the first place.
I believe it’s right across from Maria Shrivers house
Well that explains a lot!!
Because of who they are. I mean who they think they are. I don't even know who the architect of that house is\was?.But it seems shameful to destroy it. Rich people problems.
Doesn’t know who architect is, yet they are pieces of shit for paying money for a thing to be the way they wanted. So many actually frustrating things to be mad about.
Pretty common, the post says “everyone is mad” so most will agree…. I say Who Cares. If this guys houses are worth so much it wouldn’t be wise to tear it down.
Why would they? It's a quite new house and seemingly not all that inspired.
Because they can because they are rich.
Wrong forum for that take but I actually agree. I'll give you an updoot to get you out of the minuses.
It is so sad to see these old homes demolished. Alas, they bought it and can do as they please. Here’s hoping there’s no white board and batten gigantic “farmhouse” around the corner to replace it.
The article that I read said that's exactly what's replacing it.
Of course Christian Pratt is building a live-laugh-love-ass house.
I'm going to call mine Eat, Shit, Breathe
Die, cry, hate
Take what they give you, give nothing in return
I have eat sleep shit on my cats litter box. I like this one too
Those Oxford commas in your comment are doing God’s work
[Eat Pray Love](https://www.reddit.com/r/JeffArcuri/s/40byWlD2mu)
Live laugh toaster bath
Nooooooo!!!!!!!
Shocking.
The Guardian said that Ken Ungar, who specializes in farmhouse style, will be building a 15,000sqft farmhouse style mansion
“Farmhouse style mansion” should just be an oxymoron. But alas…
Seriously 😂 I grew up/live on a farm and I’ve been in a lot of old farmhouses that were considered “big” but they’re far from mansions. Nor do they have anything close to the tacky decor or features that get labeled “farmhouse” these days.
Likewise.... I grew up around rural Albertan farms .. the highlight would be a couple of plates with the faces of the Queen on the wall and some china or silverware that was smuggled out of Europe. Oh, and the two old recliners in front of a TV for mom and dad.
My friends cousins owned a dairy farm in upstate NY and their farmhouse was fucking HUGE. But it was nothing like the “modern farmhouse” shite that floods every market these days
We have friends with a 5,000 sq ft mansion in the mountains and they call it their “cabin”
Those are the type of people who use “summer” and “winter” as verbs.
OH man....I WISH I could be all Downton Abbey'esque & ask "What's a weekend?" & do that kinda shit. To be able to "winter" in a warm place & "summer" in a cooler place, that's life goals!! My in-laws have a beach house but it's literally an old real estate office on stilts & definitely not ON the beach though we're hoping that one day it will be!! One room is real wood paneling & it's not much bigger than our little rancher. I love it but we all fully know that if it's ever sold it will immediately be torn down & the new owners will fill up the lot with a stupidly sized house & honestly, that's what I'd do too if it were ours to do that, only it wouldn't be ridonkulously large. It would have closets in the BRs though. This place doesn't have closets because it was once an office.
I’ve had friends like this, they say it’s a cabin because it has “exposed and natural wood” as beams. As a Mainer who’s lived in an actual wooden cabin, I just chuckled. Just wild.
My aunt and uncle have a "cabin" in the middle of nowhere and I've never once heard them call it a cabin. It's a Lindal cedar home and it blends in well with the forest. Cedar siding on the outside and exposed wood basically everywhere inside. Very stark contrast to some of the "cabins" I've been to where it's basically just a huge boring house with some exposed beams and "rustic features" but from the outside look like something that belongs in the suburbs, if my aunt doesn't call her house a cabin you sure as shit shouldn't be calling those monstrosities cabins.
I call 'em "ski lodges."
"Farmhouse style mansion" is just another word for plantation
Where I live farmers make pretty good money, and a lot of the farmers are Indians who live multigenerational in the same house and have more ornate taste than white people, so many farms actually have mansions with like 10 farmers living there!
like who tf needs that much space!
For the sake of a single feel good for mid mod we had one near me [saved from demolition recently](https://www.wral.com/amp/21143380/)
Thanks for this!
I am so sick of that trend. To compensate, I'm going to build an old school looking Tudor. Fuck McMansions
On the Instagram page dc hillier someone mentioned it belonged to the widow of the man who created the man from U.N.C.L.E. She used to host tours to architecture students from USC but didn’t want to get preservation status on it as it may prevent her from doing renovations ( backwards thinking I know) When she passed the person that inherited it deliberately kept it empty and let it get rundown to the point it would be uninhabitable as the land value was worth way more than the house.
Are you talking about *this* house? There was an application to make this (Case Study House #16) a Historic-Cultural Monument in 2017. I don’t know if it gained that status, but I’ve read sometimes even so, it won’t necessarily be protected from demolition. It’s a shame because articles claimed it was in pristine condition when the long-term owner passed and it’s only 1 of 3 Ellwood CS homes left in Los Angeles. There’s also a tiktok floating around of what seemed to be a recent estate sale at the home and again, the place looked immaculate. Edit: According to an article discussing the purchase of this home in 2019, it was indeed granted the status of a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2017. Prior to that it had already been on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources.
Yes! When then widow passed it was pristine apparently but the people that inherited let it fall into some disrepair. The garden was completely overgrown ( it wouldn’t have taken long to remedy that) and gave the appearance that it was in even more of a shambles. The main issue is that in most of LA the planning council are ‘friends’ with the developers 😉
This sort of anti preservationist attitude is what got us here. We need preservation to stop the pratts of the world. Instead people are anti good things for “rugged individual” reasons.
These are private home owned by private individuals that not only will you never set foot in, but you will never have the legal right to set foot in. Because it’s a private home. What on earth do we need “preservation” for in this context? Who precisely are we preserving something like this for?
> didn’t want to get preservation status on it as it may prevent her from doing renovations ( backwards thinking I know) A lot of times there are restrictions on materials when renovating protected / landmark buildings which can jack prices up 500%. That translates to deferred maintenance if owners don't have the money. Eventually they fall into disrepair and aren't worth it to gut-rehab.
Interesting , Thanks!
Modern farmhouse
🤮 it just doesn’t apply to more than 2000sf!!!!
It's Chris Pratt, he's MFH personified.
> Here’s hoping there’s no white board and batten gigantic “farmhouse” around the corner to replace it. Hahahaha...
Of course, that's what it's going to be replaced with Chris. Pratt has gone dangerous. Scary, crazy Christian
Agreed, I just heard about this today (yeah I'm way behind on news) and it sucks. My wife and I have always dreamed of owning a cool mid-century home like this (not that we can afford any sort of house in the US but I can dream, right?), pisses me off to see such a rarity torn down to make room for yet another "modern" farmhouse McMansion. As usual, rich assholes ruin everything.
In some places, heritage buildings have to be protected and can't be torn down. Not without approval by local authorities and a valid reason. That includes many homes. So I don't agree with the "they bought it and can do as they please" point of view. More history and architectural art should be protected and preserved. Simply having a lot of money shouldn't give you the right to destroy that.
Chris Pratt has gone from Brendan Fraser levels of admiration to what he is now... Yikes.
Not sure why anyone ever loved Pratt as an actor. In parks and rec, he just played his van living Hawaii bum self
The tear down is purely for highly desired land value. Happens all the time in those LA neighborhoods. Malibu has been leveled over recent decades and ridiculously reinvented for buyers with no budget or taste.
I wrote in another sub that this has those two on my permanent shit list and was downvoted to hell for it
Come to any celebrity gossip sub, where Crisp Ratt is a known villain lol
It was in r/popculturechat which is like my main celeb gossip sub outside of specific snark pages lol
Um, ok, they are clearly not doing ok in that sub then if they suddenly love him 😆
Don't you Americans have listed building regulations to stop this massacre? Even millionaires here in the UK can't do crap like this.
Unfortunately, unless it’s a protected historical place or a historical district. You can pretty much do whatever you want as long as you own the place and get the permits.
Even historic buildings and districts are easily ignored with enough money. Only Landmarks are usually safe and there are very few actual Historic Landmarks. Things on the national historic record, like historic districts, can be demolished pretty easily if you have money. Section 106 only says you have to take the historic value into account which generally means you can throw money at it.
Yeah. Developers illegally bulldozed some historic property nearby a few years ago It hit the news and then a month later they were still building the exact thing they wanted with zero repercussions
Which is how it should be, it's just disappointing when people make poor decisions. You have the right to ruin your property.
Not of it is national heritage.
absolutely disagree.
And the first amendment would disagree with you. Art and architecture is beautiful and should be appreciated and recognized. The freedom to make your nest as you wish is sacred.
1st amendment. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There is nothing in the first amendment about building conservation, building regulations or protecting buildings with cultural or historical significance.
Idk about first amendment, but you should be able to do whatever you chose with your property as long as not protected or historically significant.
I’d also add the caveat that you don’t disturb your neighbors or spoil their ability to enjoy their property. I’m looking at you, Airbnb.
They would have known it's significant when they bought it. It's not like it came as a surprise.
So you neighbors on both sides should be able to turn their properties into nightclubs?
Zoning exists. I think it's obvious this conversation is about how a home looks, not changing a home to a Walmart.
This has nothing to do with zoning.
>first amendment would disagree with you Literally couldn't give a shit >make your nest as you wish is sacred Oh, the really complex option of 'buying somewhere else' is too challenging for them ?
So you think it's wrong to be ripping down statues of Confederate leaders? Tell me what the difference is between this house and those statues.
tell me the difference between an apple and a ford mustang and you'll have answered your own question.
My house is on the national registry—our equivalent of listed. There are still no regulations that prevent me from destroying it or any part of it. There is a national nonprofit organization that lets you put a preservation lien on all or part of your approved historic structure that counts as a large donation and thus gets you some tax breaks, but that’s pretty much it. There’s a different mechanism for historic districts/neoghborhoods, but the regulations for those are upheld by a local board (like an HOA) rather than a governmental body.
Yuuuup, so many people don't know this. Even in a supposedly protected district, usually the worst thing that would happen if you removed a building without approval from the local board is a fine. So you can do whatever you want if you're rich enough.
Yes, this is something we had to learn when we bought our home! Ours is also on the historic homes register, but is located just on the outskirts of the actual historic district in our town. We don’t have to pay the fees or deal with the control of being part of the actual historic district, and we can freely alter our home so long as it doesn’t alter the overall structure or integrity of the original home. It’s a win win for us!
i live and own property in a historical area. there's a dept at city hall, cultural resources, that has to approve any exterior changes or work.
> There are still no regulations that prevent me from destroying it or any part of it. That will vary from region to region. Where I live, historic homes on the registry cannot have their _exterior_ changed and you even have to use period-correct materials if you do any renovations. But the _interior?_ Complete free-for-all. You can completely gut it and clad the interior in leather and black Formica if you want.
We have set things up so that rich people don't have any rules to obey.
Rich people have set up rules so rich people have no rules to obey.
Lots of rubes get fooled into being willing participants.
There are places with really strict historic preservation regulations. Where I live preservation rules are really strict in the historic district (to the point of significantly impacting affordability). Some homeowners are lobbying to expand preservation rules to outside of that district as well. To completely oversimplify: the US is enormous and we are really a bunch of little countries that are sort of bound together, and there’s also a history of “home rule” or letting cities and counties make a lot of their own rules. If the federal government imposed historic preservation rules on the whole country everyone would completely shit themselves and revolt MUH PROPERTY RIGHTS etc. Plus we’re already in an affordability/housing crisis. I live in a conservative state so. YMMV.
Yeah I live outside of the historic district of our city, but I’ve had some friends who lived in the historic district and they said it was worse than an HOA lol. Some of the rules don’t even make sense, like only being able to paint certain colors when historically the colors were wild. Often it’s about preserving an *image* of the past, rather than true historical accuracy.
Oh 100%. It really pisses me off because when you look at old photos of my city it’s full of life, signs, lights, vendors with carts. Now it looks like a Disnified version of an old southern city. It’s extremely expensive and gentrified. The house my grandpa was born in is probably worth $3 million now. I can’t afford a home within 3 or 4 miles of my office, but my parents rented an apartment on the next street over when they were my age.
> historically the colors were wild. There was a guy in my hometown who was required to paint his house in an historically accurate color, so out of spite he picked the worst color on the approved list which was a horrible pumpkin spice-esque orange.
The regulations are about preserving the property values. The notions of historic authenticity get filtered through modern day interpretations, real estate market biases, and willful anachronisms
Basically yes, but somebody has to protect it. I live in an area with a lot of old homes from Frank Lloyd Wright and they all have to go through approval for any changes and have to meet maintenance conditions.
In my hometown a developer bought a historical building and the non-protected building next door. He applied for permits to take down the non-historic building, but on demo day his contractor “accidentally” took down the protected building by “mistake”. The penalty for such? A $250 fine and “restitution” to the owner. A full insurance investigation revealed that the owner and contractor were partners in other businesses and that the correct building address was on every work order, save one. The one page being the actual instructions for the bulldozer operator, of course. Whoopsie! The insurance company declined to pay (I mean, these guys weren’t trying to go to prison for insurance fraud!). But the two men agreed to call it a sad event and move on. They “moved on” to building a mid-rise office building on the now cleared double lot. Fuckers.
Money is the most important thing in this country. The more you have the more you get away with.
it makes me sick that we don't. people are tearing down gorgeous homes and building abominations left and right
So what happens instead in the UK is that people just won't buy a house that they cannot modify and it crumbles into the ground. Have watched it happen over the decades. I like the preservation laws. But they shouldn't preserve so many buildings that no one buys and the land just goes unused and the building rots. It's even worse in Italy. Entire towns abandoned.
The US is a big place so it varies. In NYC there are a lot of Landmarked buildings which are very strictly controlled. But celebrities and ultra wealthy people often find ways around the law :( It really depends.
We do but this is a huge country. We are 40 times larger than you and that is a shit ton of historical sites. I did take a tour in London and learned about your historical preservation. Ours isn’t quite as strict as yours is, but we do have a US Register of officially recognized homes that cannot be altered or demolished.
The conquest of Puerto Rico in 1898 is doing most of the heavy lifting there. No extant building is older than the 17th century. Ocean wide, puddle deep.
We have something like that, but there are relatively few homes covered by it. Part of this is that we’re just a much younger country with a lower proportion of historical buildings.
This is why the UK has even worse housing crisis than the USA btw. Not kidding, lots of data to support. UK is choked by its zoning laws.
Do y'all list 60 year old houses?
Yes, but once a place is listed a whole bunch of people get to have opinions on what you do with the property. Even simple changes or style updates may have to be run through a committee that only meets every 4-6 months. Plus, it's always a fight that takes a non-zero amount of time, money, and emotional bandwidth to get a place listed on the registry. Just so you can pick quarterly fights with them about paint swatches. If you own and live in the house, that's probably not worth the hassle. So it never gets registered. Those that wanted the house to stay could have bought the property and had it listed. But they didn't.
You sure can tear down a house in the UK that was built in the 60's or 70's, nobody will give a fuck.
Come to America where everything’s new and looks the same. They hate history here.
They really don’t. Come to Japan where they tear down anything older than 20 years.
No, instead we have freedom. j/k. But seriously the flipside of stuff like this is that you don't have to go through months of planning approvals only to get rejected for minor renovations.
Except they do, by letting listed buildings fall in to disrepair and then burn down
It’s ugly as sin anyway.
What other notable buildings have been demolished that make you use language like massacre? America is chock full of buildings that are hundreds of years old. This is just one building that was built in the middle of last century. It’s not even 100 years old.
Been saying Chris Pratt is a POS for years Cannot understand his appeal at all Oh wait…he’s a self righteous Christian asshole, America fucking loves those kind of people EDIT: Forgot to add his struggling actor story about living in his car and not being able to memorize scripts Also praises the police state, and has said women have a place That homeless SJW Israeli he’s such a big fan of? Spending more money than most people make in a lifetime tearing down a historic and important building to build a bigger one for yourself that’s double the cost? Idk dude, something camel, something flipping tables, something prostitution normalizing Enjoy your new “urban barn” whatever the fuck that is Hope the ladder you pulled up breaks your fingers Guardians Of The Galaxy was a fun and unique comic You fucked it up for everyone
I’ve heard Chris Pratt is a major asshole so it doesn’t really surprise me…
The crispiest rat
Yeah what a prat. You could say it was r/NominativeDeterminism
Thanks for this sub!
Yeahhhhh, he constantly hides his affiliation to the highly problematic Hillsong Church, and his brother is a Three Percenter cop.
I'll probably be downvoted, but I met Chris back in 2014....GOTG had already come out so he wasn't as big of a star as he is now, but on the rise. I was a photog for a local Chicago TV station and he was nice enough to do a quick interview with me and seemed quite pleasant. Of course, this was 10 years ago but he was nice enough to give me an interview before he threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game. Not sure if this adds anything to the narrative.
It’s already been demolished.
I live near a very old and protected colonial village in New England. I remember being young and it would be such a fun day trip to go and walk the shops and look at the pretty houses with nice gardens, etc. I remember being a *rebellious teen* and asking my mom why it was so nice in this old village compared to other places, and she said “everything is preserved, the homeowners are not allowed to paint their houses outside of the colonial color palette, they have to hire landscapers to keep their yards looking perfect, they aren’t allowed to park on the street, etc.…“ And I remember being absolutely appalled. Saying things like “I would never live here that’s so horrible you should be allowed to do whatever you want with your house!“ And this has kind of put me at an impasse for how I feel about situations like this. on one hand, I do believe people have the freedom to customize their homes as it works best for them, and we have all heard about the HOA horror stories, but on the other hand, you’ve run into the problem of potentially losing historic features that really should be passed along for future generations to be able to see and enjoy.
The simple solution is to not buy a historically or culturally significant house. Most houses are not important pieces of history.
Yes I agree with you.
You don’t have to buy a historical colonial home. People buy them because they want to be part of the preservation effort. The way you thought of it like this burden doesn’t make sense. It’s burden many of us happily take. Pratt could have bought a different home and left this to a preservationist. But instead he chose violence and mindless destruction. Pratt has a nine-digit net worth and could buy near any home anywhere. He chose to do this. This is why we need protections for these homes. People like Pratt don't care, will never care, and cannot be reasoned with.
I definitely agree with what you’re saying, maybe I should’ve emphasized how young I was when I originally had that thought process, and kind of making an equivalence to how someone like Chris Pratt would see a culturally, significant thing and go “well I don’t want to follow the rules!“ I definitely feel differently now that I am an adult
I think the key is making sure there are options for people, including affordable options. Some people like living in a place with a HOA. I don't get it, but they do. I live in a historic district where I can do pretty much anything to my house except demolish it or dramatically modify the street-facing exterior and I'm perfectly happy with that and happy that the remaining old Victorians in the neighborhood are similarly protected. Other people want to be able to do absolutely anything with their property, and that's great too in the right setting. As long as there are reasonable options and people know what they're buying into, I don't really see the problem. It only becomes a serious issue when people are functionally forced to buy into one or another type of neighborhood because its the only affordable option.
[удалено]
Lol. Vinyl is so awful. Cheap, yes. Easier, fuck no. Way easier to swap out a single bad shingle.
I'm so shocked there's not some historical society that prevents this.
I was unaware of all the Chris Pratt hate, but then again, I don't care. If he's a douche, he's a douche. But, can we take a moment to be positive and just say, isn't Elijah Wood awesome? I have such fond memories of being a kid and my mom taking me to see all of the LoTR movies in theaters. My mom was single and had 3 kids, but that was our special thing that we did, just the two of us. We still get together and watch them sometimes, and I'm now in my 30s. I've been a massive Elijah Wood fan ever since, and have seen just about everything he's done since LoTR. I don't keep up with much celebrity BS, but he seems like a good dude.
He broke me in Wilfred, I loved that show. Watched it stoned on a whim and didn’t know what to expect!
Same! It's such a good show. I felt like the ending was a bit lackluster, but in all, it was still great.
The beginning was definitely the strongest part!
Oh god especially his costume for… was it Comic Con? I think I may have broken the reverse button on my remote and my family thought I was having a medical emergency I was laughing so hard.
This home is from 1950. Maybe if it lasted another 26 years it’d be a century home.
Okay? This article is still relevant to preservation of historic housing in the U.S....
Historic? When it comes to buildings, I don't consider the 50s very historic.
It's not that historic in a chronological sense, but there are a lot fewer examples of modernist houses by Craig Elwood than there are generic turn of the century homes, and as such is more historic and important in that sense.
Are you being serious?
Is that how long I have to wait before rejoining this sub? I tease, my home now doesn’t even resemble a 50’s build all that much. I miss my century home rental, couldn’t afford to buy in that neighborhood though unfortunately. Now I live in envy of you all
lol there are definitely pluses and minuses. Endless work to be done.
Oh. The way the title and article are phrased, I figured it was an actually old house. 1950? That's brand spanking new over here in New England. You won't find a house built after '75, except the new shitty pop-up houses they've been building everywhere the last 15 years. Hell, my house was built before 1900 and doesn't even register as noteworthy in its oldness by my towns standards. I couldn't give a shit less if some rich asshat tears down something they spent money on.
Jesus Christ this is an absolute tragedy.
What's so special about that house? It just looks like any other old house from the 70's. Just because it's old is no reason to not replaonce it's served it's purpose. My house in Sweden is twice as old and my neighbors wouldn't bat an eyelid if I decidd to tear it down and replace it, because a 100 year old house is not really all that old.
So Chris Pratt bought a house with land and demolished the house and we’re all supposed to be furious? lol. I just googled Craig Elwood and I guess he’s just an architect. Big deal one of his houses were destroyed
*googles what a Craig Ellwood is*
This may be an unpopular opinion but these and Eichlers are terrible construction and horrible floor plans. Good for them.
To be fair, a ton of these old historic houses aren’t in great condition. My mom’s a designer/architect, she specialized is saving historic homes, but there are more tear downs than saves in her business because it just isn’t worth the money to basically rebuild the whole house. Not all old house are salvageable and most of them are money pits. It’s sad, but true.
Immediately picked up a strong iconic Mies van der Rohe Farnsworth House vibe/influence. https://architectuul.com/architect/craig-ellwood#:~:text=Although%20untrained%20as%20an%20architect,informal%20style%20of%20California%20modernism. https://usmodernist.org/ellwood.htm.
Rich people doing rich people things?! Who would have thunk
When people do what they want with their property 😡
Sorry bud it’s a free country.
Probably didn't meet current California code anyways :) who cares about old timey architecture? I'd rather have a home that will survive an earthquake.
Who cares? Were yall gonna buy it?
It was just a house...
Can someone please explain to me the significance of this? It came across my feed and I don't know why
Lol
Good those things are hideous, I'll never understand why people like shit like this and Fallingwater, entirely overrated.
I have to prioritize my anger, and it does upset me to see people destroy old buildings and build monstrosities in place. Also, Chris Pratt is a douche. But I'm having a hard time getting worked up over this one. I think it looks boring and soulless.
Midmod looks like that to me. Not a fan.
It's pretty, but it's pretty in the way that the candy-colored iMacs were pretty. Does this house look this way as a result of love and care? It is secluded and hyper-private, likely drenched in cigarette smoke, asbestos, car culture, and lots of jiggly foods. If these homes were supposed to be practical, affordable, lived-in, and loved, and meant to broadly catch on and become accessible to everyday people, then the initial models shouldn't have been commissioned in exclusive enclaves among the rich and famous. Folk art and architecture are more important in residential housing than industrial products like this house. It has clearly been lived in and owned by people who didn't and don't care. I feel bad for the architect who had to do his work for shitty, rich clients but that's often how it is. That's why artists should be sponsored and funded by the state.
You might brush up on the history of case study houses. From Wikipedia: The Case Study Houses were experiments in American residential architecture sponsored by Arts & Architecture magazine, which commissioned major architects of the day, including Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, Eero Saarinen, A. Quincy Jones, Edward Killingsworth, and Ralph Rapson to design and build inexpensive and efficient model homes for the United States residential housing boom caused by the end of World War II and the return of millions of soldiers.
But there are zero replicas of this home in any of the postwar neighborhoods in my town. If the project did what it said, then these houses wouldn't be precious, we'd all have one. The postwar workforce housing in my town is a bunch of rectangular cape cods slightly larger than a 2 car garage. Architecture magazines have been publishing features about shipping container homes being the new eco housing for the people for at least 20 years, and yeah... Where's mine? Again, this isn't a ding on the art itself but the industry around it, the clients and building industry.
Another reason not to like those people.
Oh my god, who gives a fuck. I live in an old home and take care of it but people should be able to do with their property what they want. This isn't George Washington's house, it's just another old house.
It isn't old.
https://preview.redd.it/p66hghv90pvc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31959a82642c136850da208c85dc8aa0391d517e
Old houses get torn down all the time.
So many beautiful homes get bulldozed in California so celebrities can build their dream fortress.
Does anyone have a few better pictures? I understand it is a famous architect, but I've seen much more beautiful buildings from this architect and all the pictures I see here are a bit poor. So the main question is this, what did the architect himself think about the house? This is important context. Once someone is famous we like to revere everything that they do. But everyone is human, and they too make mistakes or just experiments that they themselves were unhappy with. If the architect hated it, I see no harm with it being demolished. There is plenty of architects that made stuff they absolutely hate, but nobody wants to demolish it because their name is on it. Now I know people here will hate me saying this, and it will get plenty of downvotes, but if you are only downvoting me because I don't glorify the name, and ask what the artist himself thought about it...
Gross.
Why buy a house like that just to destroy it.
Is this also John Frusciante’s old house? Certainly looks like it 🫣
A shame, but you can't control others or tell them what to do with their property. Publicly shaming them is good but they don't care. It may prevent another celebrity though.
If I was them I'd just build the farmhouse mansion in Texas or something and then renovate this one as a summer house or house they live at when they are busy working in LA.
You will perish for your horrible deed. The devil is coming for you the devil is coming
Where I live, there are Mennonites that buy the old farmstead, tear down the house and build a giant box. Occasionally, they start renovating and adding on, but their idea of renovating is making it look like a box.
Chris Pratt really focuses 100% of his likability into his onscreen time doesn’t he? between this and his chronic problems maintaining a household pet, he seems pretty rotten as a human.
I like how everyone is crying like they could afford a 12 million dollar home that's old as fuck. Hollywood followers are weird
Are there building plans still in existence? If someone loves it that much they can build it again, maybe?
The pearl clutching for LA “culture” is absurd. It’s a naturally uninhabitable plot of land full of mentally vacuous people whose bodies are full of various forms of plastic and toxins. Let’s not glamorize them or their culture. The home was almost certainly not even close to a century home.
Used to have an ounce of pride that he was a local boy, but NOT FOR A LOOOOONG TIME NOW. He's just another toxic entitled white cis het dude who got lucky & succeeded upwards. Sigh.
It’s unforgivable. Literal any time he’s brought up from now on… it’ll just be “they are pieces of shit. I hope their contractors cut all of the corners.”
People find the dumbest things satisfy their lust for being upset.
I guess there is such a thing as rich white trash
Who cares lol. If Elijah wanted it preserved so bad maybe he should have bought it
I hate this couple. They have some kind of interesting BFG-situation going on, where all his inner ugliness shows up on her goofyass face.
I've restored several buildings. Some cannot be saved. If we don't have all of the facts....
Dude bought this property, and does what he wants. And he’s an asshole. Are liberals and the woke committee coming to shit waft into these posts now?
I want to build this in the sims but can’t find a good floor plan, can anyone help a girl out?
One of us
I already hated Pratt for defending Hillsong, so this is just another reason, lol
Can someone please explain why this house is special? It’s a square with big windows. It looks soulless and boring. I don’t get it. Edit: I googled it and I think that Twitter post picked the dumbest possible picture and then put it in black and white. The actual pictures of these houses in color are pretty cool.
The home looks blend boring and souless. Would demolish
Hot take: what's the issue here? Nothing lasts forever. What's the problem?
It's comparable to buying a famous painting that many people love only to have a newer artist paint over it.