Ellwood Zimmerman House

The Zimmerman House was a low-slung, , five-bedroom, three-bathroom house. According to the non-profit group USModernist, Martin and Eva Zimmerman commissioned the house in 1949. The Zimmermans sold the property to Richard Kelton in 1968; it was sold again in 1975 to Sam and Hilda Rolfe for $205,000. In 2022, the property was purchased for $12.5 million by actor Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger; they subsequently had the building razed to make way for a mansion. The destruction of the house has been viewed as symptomatic of "systemic problems", where older mid-century houses are seen as less valuable than the plot of land they occupy. The gardens and landscaping designed by Garrett Eckbo were also destroyed during the demolition, "effectively turning the nearly one-acre lot into one flat slab." ==Description==

, Zimmerman House living room, 1953. Photographed by Julius Shulman The Zimmerman House was an early work by Ellwood, co-designed by Emiel Becksy. Ellwood was known for using industrial materials such as glass, steel and concrete in his architecture, which allowed his office to produce lower cost homes. The Zimmerman House was exemplary of the California modernist style indicative of Ellwood, and other architects of the time such as Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig and Richard Neutra. Garrett Eckbo designed the home's garden which was also destroyed. The one-story home was known for its light-filled openness, featuring many sliding glass doors that provided views and passage into the garden. Similar to Ellwood's, Lappin House, the home was designed and arranged with a spine corridor, and featured a free-standing centrally located brick fireplace that separated the living room area from the dining room, similar to Case Study House 9 designed by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. The Los Angeles Conservancy stated that at the time of demolition, the home was "highly intact and a noteworthy example of modernist design from this era." ==References==