I stood outside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Storer House to take these photos, because the driveway gate was open due to construction further up the hill. It took every ounce of restraint not to walk up the stairs and and peer into the windows… as other Instagramers so brazenly did when I searched the hash tag Storer House on Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, I was tempted, but there are No Trespassing signs for good reason. This is a private residence, one of only four in a series of concrete textile-block homes built by Wright in Los Angeles. I’m sure if I owned this home, I’d get tired of the tourists and architectural stalkers scaling my walls for a look around. But as you can see, it’s impossible to take a bad photo of this house with its stunning Mayan Revival style .

I’ve been aware of this house for over 20 years, and even though I live just up the hill from it, it’s on a road that I rarely drive. Therefore, I hadn’t seen it in over a decade. What’s remarkable to me, is how much the foliage has grown up around it, and how much more wear some of the concrete blocks have suffered. When film producer Joel Silver owned the home in the mid-80’s, he spared no expense restoring it, which included replacing many of the concrete textile blocks made using the soil from the backyard,  mixed with cement to conform to Wright’s concept of organic architecture.  According to a Curbed LA article in February of this year, the home recently sold to a preservation minded buyer for what is expected to be a record price for a Wright House, possibly just shy of $7 Million.  It’s so exciting that Angelenos see value in preserving and restoring these historic treasures.

Built in 1923 for Dr. John Storer, Frank Lloyd Wright used the textile-block motif to fit the home into the hillside, creating the impression that the home was a man made extension of the landscape. The home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and designated as a Historic-Cultural Landmark (#96) in 1972 by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission. This home is considered to be one of Wright’s great masterpieces… so I guess that explains all the Archi-Stalkers.