Hollyhock is ready for company

One of Los Angeles’ architectural treasures is making a comeback. Frank Lloyd Wright’s vintage 1921 Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood will reopen for public tours on Wednesday, on what would have been the architect’s 138th birthday.

The Mayan-influenced Hollyhock House, built at the beginning of Wright’s “California Romanza” period for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, has been closed for five years. The first phase of its multimillion-dollar rehabilitation was for major structural repairs due to damage caused by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

About three years later, in December 2003, a phase-two renovation began to refurbish the interior, replace corroded pipes, repair leaks and, as it turned out, get rid of mold, wood rot and termites.

When renovations are complete, “the house will be what it was before but in terrifically better condition,” said Sara Cannon of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, which oversees the property. “It will be a clean and healthy and beautiful home, the way it used to be.”

For Scott Crawford, president of the nonprofit Friends of Hollyhock House, the reopening of the structure is a reminder to the city that “Los Angeles truly does have world-class architecture. It shows a totally new phase of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision, ‘California Romanza,’ which was unlike anything he’d ever done.

“And you see the seeds of his later masterpieces. He has falling water running through the house -- he even has built-in places for records, which is like the first entertainment center, only here he is doing it in 1921.”

The Friends group contributed a $25,000 Oriental carpet for the structure’s dining room and a reproduction of a Hollyhock chair to match a donated original Hollyhock House table for a reading alcove.

Eventually, when funding is in place, the multimillion-dollar third and fourth phases of renovation will be undertaken, involving steel reinforced walls, further restoration of the interior rooms, and repair of the water feature that sends water flowing through a moat that edges the fireplace, out into a pond and down the hillside into a reflecting pool.

Meanwhile, beginning this week, the public can walk through this architectural landmark on docent-led tours Wednesdays through Sundays. (Call [323] 644-6269 or go to www.hollyhockhouse.net.)

-- Lynne Heffley