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LLOYD WRIGHT’S MOORE HOUSE PROPOSED FOR DEMOLITION |
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The comment period for the Notice of Preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) ended on June 8. The next step in the process will be the release of the draft EIR in the coming months, which will include an opportunity to submit comments once again. We will keep you updated on this issue. Designed by noted local architect Lloyd Wright and completed in 1959, the highly intact Moore House in Palos Verdes Estates is threatened as a teardown. The owners plan to construct a new house on this prime site overlooking the ocean. Since the house has absolutely no local protection, public outcry is essential in preventing its demolition.
The City of Palos Verdes Estates has no historic preservation ordinance, and local landmark designation is not available as a preservation tool to help protect the house. Palos Verdes Estates received an F on the Conservancy’s 2003 and 2008 countywide Preservation Report Cards. The Notice of Preparation (NOP) of an environmental impact report for the project was released in early May, which found the Moore House eligible for listing as a historic resource. The Conservancy submitted comments urging the city to require one or more reuse alternatives in the EIR that could upgrade the Moore House’s interior or expand the home’s square footage through a sensitively scaled addition to meet the property owners’ desire for increased space.
About a year ago, the house’s owners had submitted another proposal to demolish the Moore House and construct a new home on the site. Although that project was unanimously denied by the Planning Commission at its June 2009 meeting, the decision was based on the inappropriate scale of the proposed new construction and not on the historic significance of the Moore House. Largely due to public outcry against the earlier demolition proposal in 2009 – including opposition from the Conservancy, the California Preservation Foundation, Lloyd Wright scholar Dana Hutt, and Lloyd Wright’s son Eric Lloyd Wright – the city is requiring the owners to prepare a full EIR for their proposal to demolish the house and build a new home in its place. A Gem of Modern Residential Design
Located at 504 Paseo del Mar, the Moore House is a striking example of modernism in a neighborhood dominated by Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean Revival inspired homes; Wright’s design was nearly rejected by Palos Verdes Estates, whose architectural design guidelines strongly favor a traditional aesthetic. The unique house features dramatically angled roof overhangs, walls clad in locally quarried Palos Verdes stone, and expansive windows to take advantage of ocean views. Wright’s innovative arrangement of interior rooms placed the common areas, including the living room, dining room and kitchen, along with the master bedroom on the upper floor for maximum views of the ocean and coastline. It is profiled in the monograph Lloyd Wright: The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. with photography by Alan Weintraub and text by Dana Hutt.
Lloyd Wright (1890-1978), son of internationally renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright, had a successful career focused in Southern California that spanned over six decades. Born Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr., but always known as Lloyd to distinguish him from his father, his career produced such well known works as the Sowden House (1926) in Los Feliz and both the Wayfarer’s Chapel (1951 with later additions) and Bird of Paradise House (1965) in nearby Rancho Palos Verdes. The Moore House, completed in 1959, was designed during a period in which Lloyd Wright’s work was known for flared, flamboyant forms. Architectural historian David Gebhard has described Lloyd Wright’s postwar residential designs as “agitated, flamboyant and anything but quiet” and “domestic single family equivalents to the sparkling and tinselly world of Wilshire Boulevard.”
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