For some, it was hard to tell which was the bigger piece of inconsequential news this week: that Beverly Hills officials indicated that, gosh, perhaps some architecture is worth preserving, or that the investors planning to sell Richard Neutra’s Kronish House as a $14-million tear-down will stave off the bulldozers until at least Oct. 10.
In a city where Frank Lloyd Wright’s celebrated Ennis House, widely regarded as one of the region’s most important pieces of residential architecture, couldn’t even fetch $5 million after two years on the market, do we think a design savior will step forward and plunk down $14 million for one of Neutra’s lesser works? For Sam Watters, who writes our Lost L.A. column about our ghosts of home and garden, the story is all too familiar. The proposed solutions? Too little, too late.
Lost L.A.: Richard Neutra’s Kronish House
Photo: An undated historical photo of the 1954 Kronish House, whose condition has since deteriorated. Credit: Associated Press / J. Paul Getty Trust
Irving Gill’s Dodge House, a landmark in memory