In His Own Wright
Lloyd Wright (Jr.) in the Hollywood Hills
It’s been two weeks since we last wrote, and I’ve been struggling with the December of it all. The days are too short, I’ve been working more than usual, and the unexpected cold, record-setting rain, the constant evolution of new variants, and a sense of unease in the streets of Hollywood have all played a part in my slothy impotence. I feel as though I have too many half stories, I’ve trained myself to write the short bursts for Instagram’s format, and I’ve been trying to navigate which houses can be a petite bite, and which stories deserve to be expanded. Though truthfully, they all deserve to be expanded, that’s the fascination and the dilemma, when there’s only so much of the picture I’m able to reveal.
So this week we’re going to be a bit less formal and we’re going to run through some Lloyd Wright homes, with some cameos from characters from previous stories.
Ahh, Lloyd Wright- talented in his own right (apologies) but doomed to always live in his father’s shadow. I’m embarrassed to note that I didn’t know there was a father and son until this little architecture passion overtook my life; for years I assumed all “Wright” houses in LA were the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and I don’t think I’m alone in that misconception. I love an underdog, and I have a soft spot for Lloyd on his own, so let’s give him his due.
The Beginnings
Lloyd first came to California as a landscape architect and fell in love with it. He was in the arts and theater scene of Los Angeles early on.
He rented this and lived here in 1917 with his first wife, actress/artist Kyra Markham. They married in 1922 and divorced around 1925.
Sowden House
Arguably, Lloyd’s most famous work in LA is the Mayan Revival-style Sowden House in Los Feliz, and its loose ties to the Black Dahlia murder.
This house is gorgeous, and frankly, a better version of his father’s concrete block houses, which continue to crumble and deteriorate across LA (though still remarkable!). The Sowden House has been used for parties and filmings over the years, but it gained a new ominous legacy when Dr. George Hodel bought it in 1945. Hodel supposedly had…oh, let’s call it a dark side, that involved bacchanals and orgies and beating his sons in the basement. His daughter Tamar ran away after accusations of incest and being raped by party guests (you can read more of those gruesome details here). Her father launched a smear campaign but didn’t exactly deny her story. After Hodel died in 1999, son Steve wrote a 2003 book, Black Dahlia Avenger arguing his father killed Elizabeth Short and possibly another woman. These claims have been hotly debated by several people who are more true crime-minded than I am but feel free to fall into that wormhole if it strikes your black heart.
But let’s go back a bit further. I love Lloyd’s other homes more, they always fill me with a light and wonder when I see them, and don’t have a shadow of murder and torture tainting them.
The Otto Bollman House
The Otto Bollman house is a particular favorite, maybe because it was the first one I sought out and researched. It’s another one tucked away in the magical Hollywood Heights, that little out-of-time enclave, inaccessible to cars and created as part of the Morning Glory Terrace development that included the High Tower elevator (the first free-standing elevator of its kind in America).
Otto had a film studio, and he and Lloyd were friends, and according to some sources, Otto’s son Henry was Lloyd’s contractor (Lloyd also did Henry’s home, but it’s a bit outside of our walking range, so no photos of that). It’s possible Otto and Lloyd met when Lloyd was head of set design for Paramount (dates are foggy on this, but I’m trusting the NYT obit that lists 1916–1918).
At the time, Lloyd was supposed to be supervising the construction of Aline Barnsdall’s Hollyhock House for his father, who was in Japan. Aline Barnsdall wasn’t pleased with Lloyd’s work (and supposedly his dad wasn’t paying him, so where’s the incentive) and he just wanted to work on his own things- which prompted Wright Sr to bring Rudolph Schindler to Los Angeles, but that’s another story. Otto encouraged Lloyd’s interest in building with concrete blocks, and their use as decoration on the Bollman house preceded Frank Lloyd Wright’s four Los Angeles concrete block houses (Storer, Ennis, Freeman, and Millard).
The house was completed in 1921, but Dial Films collapsed in 1922 and it was put up for auction in 1926.
Hollywood Bowl and other theatrical work
Lloyd was building sets for a while, including a production of Othello in 1920, and then Ibsen’s When We Dead Awaken in 1921, both directed by his friend Reginald Poel (sometimes written Pole- we’re going to come back to him). In 1926, Lloyd designed the sets for Julius Caesar at the Hollywood Bowl in a unique staging with no act breaks or resetting- performed in an uninterrupted flow from start to finish. The set was longer than a city block and created to utilize the unique structure of the natural amphitheater, creating terraces and lit by our friend Otto K Olesen.
Lloyd designed this bandshell for the Bowl in 1927, which people didn’t like and had bad acoustics.
And this one in 1928, a beautiful early example of Streamline Moderne, which had great acoustics but people didn’t like this one either.
Taggart House
This beauty was built for Martha Taggart in 1922 and is considered by some to be Lloyd’s first “significant” modern home. Martha was Reginald Pole’s mother-in-law, Reginald was married to actress Helen Taggart (Reginald and Helen had a young son, Rupert). Reginald went off to New York to do theater and knew his pal Lloyd was keeping her company while he was having an affair with theosophical ceramicist Beatrice Wood, who we talked about with the Arensbergs.
Well, Helen and Lloyd married in 1926 and had a son — Eric — in 1929.
Helen passed in 1977, and services were held in Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verde. This is written in her obituary: “Despite widespread misconception that the chapel was designed by her father-in-law, Frank Lloyd Wright, it was designed by her husband.”
Lloyd designed their West Hollywood home and office in 1927, which is currently available to lease.
Samuel-Novarro House
Latin Lover sex symbol film star Ramon Novarro met Louis Samuel in a dance class and Louis became his personal secretary/manager/companion (infer what you will, everyone else has). Novarro introduced Lloyd Wright to Louis, Novarro wanted Wright to build him a Spanish that never happened.
In 1928, Wright built this for Louis and his wife (married 1929) but Louis could only afford it by embezzling his friend Ramon’s money to invest to pay for the mortgage, advised by his investor brother. But then the stock market crashed. In 1930, Novarro discovered Louis was embezzling and was left with only $160 in his bank account. Novarro was too popular and didn’t want bad press, in addition to being devastated by the betrayal of his best friend, so he didn’t press charges. Instead, he reclaimed the house for himself and brought Lloyd back to dramatically expand and renovate. He brought in Cedric Gibbons (art director for MGM) to decorate with Bullocks Wilshire finest and Novarro lived there until the late 30s. In 1944, Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green rented it while they worked on the “On the Town” musical. In the early 90s, this got a full renovation by Diane Keaton, which she sold to Christina Ricci in 2005 (who sold a year later). I love this Mayan/Art Deco/oxidized sprawl (remember, it was originally smaller for Louis) and it’s currently being renovated again by new owners.
Beverly Johnson House
Then we have this sturdy pink beauty, built in 1963 for Beverly Johnson (not the model), still showing sleek lines, slightly brutal with that hint of Mayan fascination.
So that concludes our little tour of the under-sung son Lloyd Wright in the Hollywood Hills, and his creations that still stand, often renovated under the stewardship of his architect son, Eric. Eric also designed a house for his half-brother Rupert Pole and his wife, Anais Nin. Eric and Lloyd seem to have had a better relationship than Lloyd had with his father and undoubtedly better than Steve Hodel had with his possibly murderous one.
All these long-forgotten characters of Los Angeles weave together and breathe fresh color into the tapestry of the Hollywood Hills. The last time we wrote, we touched on author Eve Babitz, and her teenage home, and it was devastating to hear of her recent passing, certainly recommend reading her if you haven’t already.
Wishing you all a safe and cheery holiday season and, by the way, did you order anything from the Monastery of the Angels yet?