A Monumental Fixer

“You see, the final result is going to stand on that hill a hundred years or more. Long after we are all gone, it will be pointed out as the Ennis house and pilgrimages will be made to it by lovers of the beautiful from everywhere.”

-- architect Frank Lloyd Wright in a 1924 letter to Charles and Mabel Ennis

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Famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright may have predicted the persistent popularity of what has become known as the Ennis-Brown House, but it appears he underestimated the threats that man and Mother Nature would pose to his Maya-inspired, concrete block creation.

The World Monuments Fund recently included the house, which is spread along a ridge high above Vermont Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard, on its 2004 list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. The home is one of six sites in the United States to be so designated.

Others on the biennial list include an Antarctica expedition hut, historic Lower Manhattan and, arguably, the world’s most famous wall.

“Certainly I was delighted to know we were in the same company as the Great Wall of China,” said Franklin De Groot, executive director of the Trust for Preservation of Cultural Heritage, a nonprofit organization committed to rehabilitating the Ennis-Brown House and opening it to the public.

The nearly 10,000-square-foot home is a collection of more than 24,000 patterned, perforated and smooth concrete blocks that were made by hand and contain decomposed granite extracted from the site. “He felt the concrete block was a material that was conducive to the Southwest, to this climate and this terrain,” said Wright’s grandson, Eric Lloyd Wright, an architect who is involved in the multimillion-dollar rehabilitation project.

Woes plaguing the structure -- the largest of four textile-block homes Wright created in Los Angeles -- stem partially from attempts by past owners to protect it by coating many of the 16-inch-by-16-inch blocks with sealants, which have weakened the steel skeleton and blocks.

The problems were compounded by the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which left a southern retaining wall riddled with gaping holes, exposed rebar and damaged blocks.

De Groot estimates that $10 million is needed to rehabilitate the house, which will remain open for tours while it is under repair. So far, less than a third of the sum has been raised from a combination of federal, state and private sources. An “adopt-a-block dedication program” was established in July to raise money. (More information is available at www.ennisbrownhouse.org.)

Individual blocks may be permanently dedicated for $250 -- the estimated cost of reproducing and installing a new block. “We’ve had all kinds of dedications,” De Groot said. “Someone dedicated a block to a deceased pet.”

Brian Curran, West Coast consultant for the World Monuments Fund, cited the deteriorating condition of the Ennis-Brown House and its status as “one of Los Angeles’ greatest architectural treasures” as reasons it is on the watch list. The home’s historic significance has been acknowledged by federal, state and local officials.

“Once you are able to spotlight a building -- whether it be as internationally significant as the Taj Mahal or something as locally significant as the Ennis-Brown House -- it makes the community around it look at it in a different way,” Curran said. “It becomes not just the old building down the block, but an integral part of the community that connects people to their past.”

The Los Feliz house is an example of Wright experimenting with concrete blocks. He wanted people to use the blocks to develop their own homes at a reasonable cost, De Groot said.

“He was hoping some manufacturer would pick up this concept and help him develop a block that could be mass-produced, but he never was able to,” Eric Lloyd Wright said.

The home at 2655 Glendower Ave. offers a glimpse into the lives and aspirations of its original owners, Charles and Mabel Ennis. An affluent couple who owned a men’s clothing store, they commissioned Wright to design a home for them to entertain in.

“They wanted a vast party house,” said Christopher Doerr, a docent at the house who is writing a book on it.

As the project progressed, however, so did differences between architect and client, prompting Wright to eventually quit the endeavor.

He, for example, wanted pitched ceilings in the living room and dining room because, according to Doerr, they would provide “a more natural flow.” By contrast, the Ennises favored flat ceilings with thick beams and moldings.

The home was later renamed the Ennis-Brown House in a nod to Augustus Brown, who donated it in 1980 to the trust.

The unusual appearance of the home -- more Maya temple than Southern California single-family residence -- has led to its frequent use as a film location. It has been featured in “Blade Runner,” “The House on Haunted Hill” and “Grand Canyon.”

Just as Wright predicted, the home continues to draw admirers. As many as 3,000 people visit each year. They pull into a courtyard bounded by the chauffeur’s quarters to the west, a panoramic view of Los Angeles to the south and the main house to the east.

The home opens to a small dark room with low ceilings. As visitors cross the room, they are confronted by darkness to the right and light to the left. The light leads to the so-called great space, which features a vast dining room, living room and 100-foot indoor loggia.

The home has two bedrooms, one a guest bedroom with a water-damaged ceiling. “It seems as though most Frank Lloyd Wright homes have leaky roofs,” said Janet Van Delft, operations manager of his Prairie-style Robie House in Chicago.

But it is the Ennis-Brown House’s living room -- with its high ceilings and massive French doors surrounded by five leaded-glass windows accented with bits of green, blue, purple and gold -- that commands attention, as does the adjacent dining room with its unique pair of corner windows. A 14-foot-high door off the loggia opens to a ladder closet, which comes in handy when a lightbulb goes out.