ENNIS HOUSE SOLD

"You see, the final result is going to stand on that hill a hundred years or more. Long after we are gone it will be pointed out as the Ennis House, and pilgrimages will be made to it by lovers of the beautiful – from everywhere." – Frank Lloyd Wright, in a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Ennis (1924)

Tim Street-Porter

The Ennis House is a Los Angeles icon. After being stabilized and partially restored by the nonprofit Ennis House Foundation, it was sold to business executive Ron Burkle in July 2011.

The Conservancy holds a conservation easement on the house that will protect it in perpetuity. We look forward to working with Mr. Burkle to ensure the long-term preservation of this beloved Los Angeles landmark.

The House
The Stabilization Project
The Sale
Easement Overview and Slideshow (new page)
Ennis House Photo Gallery (new page)

The House

Tim Street-Porter

Completed in 1925 for businessman Charles Ennis and his wife Mabel, the Ennis House is the last of four Wright-designed textile block houses built in Southern California in the 1920s. At 6,200 square feet (including chauffeur's quarters), it was also the largest, since the Ennises were relatively wealthy and liked to entertain.

Wright's experimental textile block system used interlocking, identical pre-cast concrete blocks. The textile block served as a single building component for both the inner and outer walls that was structural as well as ornamental.

Believing that the house should be "of" the hill rather than merely "on" it, Wright integrated the house into the hillside and used soil from the site in the concrete blocks (which ultimately played a role in their deterioration).

Tim Street-Porter

Perched in the hills above Los Feliz, the monumental structure is a masterpiece inside and out, with beautiful custom art glass and spectacular views of Los Angeles.

Its unique, exotic appearance made the Ennis House a popular filming location for decades; its most memorable appearances include 1959's The House on Haunted Hill, 1982's Blade Runner, and the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Original owner Charles Ennis lived in the house only a few years, until his death in 1928. Mabel Ennis sold the house in 1936. It had a series of successive owners, including Augustus Brown, who made the house available for public tours and donated it in 1980 to the nonprofit Trust for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage.

After Mr. Brown's death, the nonprofit was reorganized in 2005 and renamed the Ennis House Foundation. The Ennis House is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

The Stabilization Project

National Trust for Historic Preservation

Despite its significance, the Ennis House suffered greatly over the years from deferred maintenance, deterioration of the concrete blocks, the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and the record rains of winter 2005.

The situation grew so dire that the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the house on its 2005 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Places, and the World Monuments Fund placed it on its list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites in the world.

The Ennis House Foundation spearheaded a major effort to stabilize the house. Using a FEMA grant and a $4.5 million construction loan from First Republic Bank, construction began in mid-2006. The project team built a new structural frame to support the motor court, chauffeur's quarters, and part of the south wall, which had partially collapsed.

Stephen Schafer

The team also replaced the roof; repaired and restored interior woodwork, floors, ceilings, art-glass doors and windows, and a mosaic glass tile mural; painted the kitchen cabinetry in its original color; and cleaned interior concrete blocks.

They repaired or replaced nearly 3,000 of the house’s 27,000 concrete blocks, many of which had eroded over time or were treated with waterproofing materials that inadvertently caused damage. As many of the original blocks as possible were repaired, and new replacement blocks were cast from molds made from the originals.

The Sale

Stephen Schafer

As construction progressed, it became clear that the Ennis House needed more stewardship than a small nonprofit could provide. Given the lack of philanthropy available to support ongoing work on the house, the Foundation placed it on the market in June 2009.

Business executive Ron Burkle purchased the house in July 2011, to the delight of the Conservancy. Mr. Burkle has a track record in the stewardship of important historic homes, having owned the Greenacres estate (built in the 1920s for Harold Lloyd) since 1993.

The Conservancy holds a detailed conservation easement that protects the Ennis House in perpetuity. It also provides for some form of public access at least 12 times a year. We will work with Mr. Burkle to determine exactly what form the public access will take.