Bold, Original House is a Lousy Neighbor

The article in the Valley View section (June 30) concerning Bruce Goff’s Struckus House in Woodland Hills was justly laudatory about the stature of Goff as one of our greatest architects, and about the bold originality of the house. However, it completely disregarded important questions about ruinous effects that architecture of inappropriate scale and/or style may have upon the life of the neighborhood into which it is wedged.

Readers who may travel to the site to view the Struckus House because of the article may want to ask themselves whether they would like to inhabit a neighboring bungalow of which the bedrooms and pool are a few direct feet away from the huge windows of the Goff structure, which towers 4 1/2 stories above.

The self-satisfied protestations of Goff and Mr. Struckus about “life-harmony” and “religious experience” in connection with the building of this house ring hollow to those of us whose lives and plans have been unilaterally disrupted by them.

Although one of those condescendingly referred to by Mr. Struckus as being “antagonistic” to his selfish project, I am not only professionally involved in the arts, but an architecture fan and an L.A. Conservancy member. As such, I feel compelled to ask whether, despite the brillance of it’s design, those involved in building this house should be considered different from the money-grubbing perpetrators of the Fujita monstrosity in Encino, which also ruined its surrounding area.

ELLIOT KAPLAN

Woodland Hills