Restoration of Hollyhock House, Barnsdall Park to Begin

To gather inspiration for his design of Hollyhock House atop what now is Barnsdall Park, Frank Lloyd Wright wandered among the olive groves that once dotted that hill in east Hollywood and tracked the play of the sun and the moon.

Eighty years after Wright’s masterpiece was completed, the long-planned restoration of the Maya-flavored house and verdant grounds is about to commence with seismic repairs and replanting of hundreds of olive trees in keeping with Wright’s original vision.

But like much of the history of the property at Hollywood Boulevard and Vermont Avenue--deeded to the city as a park by oil heiress and original resident Aline Barnsdall in 1927--the project has been steeped in friction and wrangling.

The battles began with the eccentric visionaries Wright and his client Barnsdall and continue today with adult art students contending that current restoration planners schemed to oust them from their Wright-designed building in the park, where classes have been held since 1947. There is suspicion over why landscaping is taking precedence over the refurbishment of historic structures, and there is even squabbling over the spacing of pine trees atop the hill.

The protagonists at first glance seem to fall into two camps: city Cultural Affairs and parks officials intent on accurately restoring Barnsdall’s historic architecture, and art students and neighborhood groups who insist that preservation should not supersede the community’s needs for open space and cultural enrichment. But the divisions among the many players are not always clear-cut.

Last week, the city Recreation and Parks Commission approved a $9.9-million contract for the first phase of restoration: seismic repairs to Hollyhock House and the nearby adult art center, originally built as a guest house. Also scheduled to begin in the next few weeks is grading and replanting on the hill.

The coalition of community and arts groups won some promises: that classes will resume at the adult art center when restoration is completed and that they will be allowed input during the work, which is expected to last several years.

But there still is an undercurrent of distrust.

“They talked about the olive groves and how this is Wright’s masterpiece, but there was nothing said about the uses of the park for the people,” Nyla Arslanian, president of the Hollywood Arts Council, said after the commission meeting.

For years, the Hollywood Arts Council has sponsored a children’s art festival at Barnsdall. The council is concerned that the landscape design--and in particular a planned pine grove on the hilltop--will restrict such festivals in the future.

City officials insist that it is not a question of people versus an aesthetic vision, or even art versus architecture.

“There’s definitely a historical agenda we have to protect, and we also have to provide access for creation and performance opportunities. We have to do both these things, and I think we can,” said Margie Johnson Reese, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

The buildings in Barnsdall Park sit atop the 90-foot hillock like mysterious ancient ruins. The concrete and stucco Hollyhock House has a pre-Columbian air. The guest house, with its geometric leaf design, was built into the hillside, anticipating Wright’s better-known landmark, the Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania. Another iconic architect, R.M. Schindler, supervised much of the work on the guest house.

In later decades, a gallery, theater and the Junior Arts Center were added. Those and the park grounds have suffered the ravages of time and were further battered by the Northridge earthquake and construction of the nearby Metro Rail, which for a while turned the park’s frontage into a giant ditch.

It is a unique spot, though, and from its slopes breathtaking views may be seen of the Hollywood Hills, distant Mt. Baldy and Mt. Wilson, the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Pacific. The environment still evokes passionate emotions from the generations of art students who have flocked to what used to be called Olive Hill.

“I just fell in love with it,” said Lisa Song, a psychiatric social worker who started taking ceramics classes 15 years ago. “It’s like having an outlet in a stressful world. I’ve referred patients to take a class at Barnsdall.”

Officials concede that the restoration planning has at times been frustrating. Much of the park has been closed for nearly a year, displacing the art classes--relocated to nearby venues--and the many festivals and cultural events that found a scenic home there. In the meantime, little actual work has been undertaken, as the city and federal officials haggled over the amount of federal seismic money to be awarded for the project. Now, September deadlines for use of $1.9 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds and $700,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds loom.

Not Enough Funds to Finish Project

What is more, despite years of planning, there are no funds to complete preservation of the Hollyhock House--which is listed on the National Register of Historic places--or the adult art center. Federal money covers only seismic repairs but not the detailed restoration needed to return the buildings to their former glory.

Instead, most initial work will involve installing fire suppression, storm drain, irrigation and electrical systems, sewers and landscaping over most of the park’s 38 acres, as well as improving access for the disabled. Officials say this backbone is necessary for any future work.

Community groups’ ire came to a head when it was recently discovered that the adult art center did not have a permit for commercial use and that no money was earmarked to bring the building up to code for such a permit.

Despite denials from the city, students asserted that project designers had an ulterior motive and they feared they would be shut out of the facility forever.

After a hastily called public hearing that drew 200 community members and the district’s City Council candidates, Michael Woo and Eric Garcetti, $1.1 million in city money was found to prepare a historic structure report for the building, which is a necessary first step before preservation work can begin.

Los Angeles Recreation and Parks General Manager Ellen Oppenheim said part of the confusion stemmed from the fact that three city agencies--Recreation and Parks, Cultural Affairs and General Services--oversee aspects of the park.

“We’re looking for potential grant sources and exploring other opportunities,” she said. “We’re certainly eager to get that building back in service for adult art use.”

Still, there are many unanswered questions, from how art supplies are to be transported up the hill to whether the massive stands of olive groves will be planted with fruited or unfruited trees.

The debates will rage on for many years, said Paul Gamberg, a community activist who has researched Barnsdall’s original deeds and has been the voice of much neighborhood criticism.

“It’s not over yet, and it will be up to all of us to work out these continuing frictions between historic preservation and uses of the park,” he said.

Hopes Set on Cooperation

Many community members hope that kind of cooperation can be achieved through the Barnsdall Art Park Foundation, which includes representatives of adult and children’s student groups, the gallery and Friends of Hollyhock House, but which has met infrequently. There is an effort now to include other community groups and the city to turn the foundation into a fund-raising engine.

Hundreds of adults and children each year have swarmed the complex to sign up for art classes, and many had to be turned away. Yet many other Los Angeles residents seem to be unaware of the park’s history or existence, as it is obscured in part by a shopping center and a medical building.

“You can whiz by on Hollywood Boulevard and barely know it’s there,” said Ken Bernstein, a preservation specialist with the Los Angeles Conservancy. “Part of the challenge is to not only enhance Barnsdall at the top of the hill but enhance the visual connections and linkages to the rest of the community and make it more of a presence in east Hollywood.”

In a sense, Barnsdall has suffered, almost from birth, from an identity crisis. Aline Barnsdall’s first love was the stage, and in 1917, she conceived of a theater-art complex housing actors, teachers and students. Much of the project she envisioned was never realized. She lived only a few years in the house--designed with a geometric motif that represents her favorite flower.

She reportedly disliked the bedroom and thought the dining room too small. But, upset that the city was not properly caring for her jewel, she returned to the park as a caretaker years later, living in a now-demolished guest house, carrying her own water up the hill because the city had shut off the lines. She died on Olive Hill in 1946.

The question now is whether the park will ever return to its original luster.

“I think that around Hollyhock House, yes, the original vision will be very close to the historical view [Wright] had when he built the house,” said the city’s project manager, Kathleen Chan. “I think the rest of the park will be as close as we can get it to a realistic interpretation and still use it as a park. That is still a problem. Aline had no idea, when she gave the park to the city, the sheer numbers of people who would use it.”