Chris Pratt & Katherine Schwarzenegger razed a historic Craig Ellwood house

Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarenegger have done something unforgivable: they razed a historic Los Angeles home designed by Craig Ellwood and they’re planning to build a tacky faux-farmhouse in its place. I don’t get any part of why anyone would do this – there are so many historic and interesting mid-century homes in LA which are lovingly preserved – and even modernized, within reason – by wealthy Angelenos. Instead of taking the time to learn about the Zimmerman House, Pratt and Schwarzenegger just destroyed it to build another dumb McMansion in a farmhouse style.

It seems that L.A.’s thirst for massive modern farmhouses knows no bounds: last week, news broke that Chris Pratt and wife Katherine Schwarzenegger quietly bought then razed the 74-year-old Zimmerman House by Southern California modernist architect Craig Ellwood with plans to build a 15,000-square-foot residence in the increasingly ubiquitous, though contentious style. As first published by Robb Report, the couple reportedly paid $12.5 million in an off-market sale for the midcentury house in Brentwood, which marked one of Ellwood’s earliest projects. They also tore up all of modernist legend Garrett Eckbo’s original landscaping, effectively turning the nearly one-acre lot into one flat slab.

In Quinn Garvey’s video, which she took inside the Zimmerman House during the 2022 estate sale, you can see the home’s original fixtures and structures, many of which were featured in Julius Shulman’s 1953 photos of the property—and still seemed to be in good if not great shape. (Some were even sold on 1stDibs late last year, prior to demolition.) Garvey says that when she heard the news, she was surprised, even though this isn’t her “first rodeo” in terms of estate sales in subsequently demolished homes. “I remember going through it, and it was such a pleasant experience,” she says. “I thought it was in great condition. I’ve been to estate sales in houses that were a little dilapidated or you can see the water damages or the hinges of the cabinets are falling off, but that house had such a different feel to it. I never thought it was gonna go. It’s just like, Really? You had to do that?”

Of course, the preservationists are also quite upset—and vocal. Nonprofit Save Iconic Architecture called the demolition “devastating” in an Instagram post, with at least one commenter likening the couple’s choice to “buying a Rothko for the frame.” The architectural preservation advocacy group’s cofounder, interior designer Jaime Rummerfield, says she more than understands the internet’s collective disgust, likening it to “an endangered animal that just got poached again” and saying that it’s “neglectful” for architect Ken Ungar, who’s been commissioned to build the couple’s new modern farmhouse-style mansion, to not even attempt to incorporate the existing structure into their vision. “Shame on them for not wanting to keep something so special,” she adds.

Part of the reason people are angry is because, realistically, the couple didn’t actually have to demolish the residence. They reportedly purchased the house because Schwarzenegger’s mother, Maria Shriver, lives right across the street, raising the question of whether there were other properties on the block they could have pursued. Some, like L.A. architect John Dutton—who actually grew up in one of the adjacent homes Shriver razed to build her compound—have also questioned whether Pratt and Schwarzenegger could have added to the existing footprint, saying that, while amending the Ellwood-designed property would have taken longer and cost more, the result would have been a home that was more special, rather than “a weird, emblematic three-dimensional advertisement of status.”

And while the home’s 2,770 square feet is modest by today’s big money real estate standards, realtors like Take Sunset’s Rob Kallick agree that, had the house hit the open market, it would have generated a lot of interest, even at that steep price point. “Craig Ellwood homes elicit a very strong emotional response from buyers,” he says. While he admits that there is a limited pool of buyers for a $12.5 million architecturally significant home, “there are many wealthy people who deeply understand how valuable that house could be to preserve and restore, even if it’s kind of small-ish, relatively speaking.” A Richard Neutra house that just went on the market in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood is already in contract, for instance, with Kallick saying showings were “a complete madhouse.”

[From Dwell]

Re: the house could have been put on the open market – EXACTLY! There are so many wealthy people who want to purchase a piece of architectural history so they kind of find a cool way to preserve and modernize it within reason. Dwell also says that there’s outrage that the Zimmerman House wasn’t already given some kind of protected status, and basically the city and the historic preservationist society was slow to move on this one. There was no mechanism in place to stop this. Pratt and Schwarzenegger basically didn’t have to consult with anyone before they razed the house.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Instagram.