Los Feliz’s Everything Space: Hollyhock House and Barnsdall Art Park
On top of Olive Hill, in Los Feliz, is a compound for the arts. It is the legacy of Aline Barnsdall, who dreamed of an art utopia overlooking a valley. Although tiny and not as well known as neighboring Griffith Park, Barnsdall Art Park is not short on things to do. Today, you will find everything that Aline Barnsdall dreamed it would be–a home, a gallery, a theater, and a place for the community to take art classes. I am giving you the local scoop on my favorite Los Feliz Everything Space: Hollyhock House and Barnsdall Art Park.
How to find Barnsdall Art Park
The first hurdle to getting to Barnsdall Art Park is finding it. Standing on Vermont Avenue and looking east, all you see are strip malls. It is hard to imagine that above the Jon’s and Fallas Paredes, there is a Frank Lloyd Wright house and a museum. It is up there, trust me.
There are two ways to access the park. If you are taking the Metro B Line (formerly the Red line), the most convenient entrance is off Barnsdall Avenue, which intersects Vermont just north of Sunset. A half a block west from Vermont, on Barnsdall, there is a set of steep stairs that lead you up to the east side of the park.
If you come from Hollywood Boulevard, there is a more obvious and accessible entrance. This is the entrance I prefer with its view of the Griffith Observatory, the Hollywood Sign, and panoramic views of the mountains.
But first, who is Aline Barnsdall?
Aline Barnsdall was very much ahead of her time. She was an oil heiress who bucked conformity and wanted to trade it all for a bohemian life in California. She was a single mother–by design, shocking for the early 20th century. Aline was a feminist who produced experimental theater. When she purchased Olive Hill, she wanted it to be a center for the arts. She wanted a place where people could come and learn to paint, to perform in plays, and a place for kids to be kids–there were plans for a petting zoo.
Aline also wanted to live in the midst of this art utopia. When she hired Frank Lloyd Wright, the initial project included a house, theater, and guest residences on the property.
Hollyhock House
The reason most people make the hike up to Barnsdall Art Park is to see Hollyhock House. This house sits on the west side of the property, getting almost 360-degree views of the city.
The Hill
When Aline Barnsdall purchased the property, Los Angeles wasn’t the sprawling metropolis we know today. The Los Angeles basin was recently parceled out from being ranch land–Rancho Los Feliz, how this area got its name. For thousands of years before that, it was a trade route and settlement for the first people of Los Angeles, the Tongva.
When Hollyhock House was built in 1919, this hill was covered in olive trees, and recently, the Hollyhock Foundation replanted dozens of trees to bring the namesake back. The Hollywoodland sign advertising the new development was erected four years later, and the Griffith Observatory only existed as a thought in the papers of Griffith J. Griffith.
Olive Hill has one of the best panoramic views of the city. To the west, on a clear day, you can see all the way to the ocean. You can see the Hollywood Sign to the west and directly in front of you the Griffith Observatory.
The Architect
Who is Frank Lloyd Wright? If you aren’t sure who he is. Quickly, as he had a very prolific and storied career, Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect and designer known for inventing the Prairie Style of Architecture. Wright is well-known for his interesting motifs and being a designer who had input on every element of the house, from the facade to what rugs would cover the floors. In his 70-year career, he designed over 500 sites, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Falling Water in Pennsylvania, and several homes and sites in the Chicago area. His furniture and lighting pieces are often included in the decorative arts sections of museums.
Lloyd Wright also built two other houses in the neighborhood: Enis House, which you can see from Hollyhock House and Sowden House, a reasonable walk away on Franklin Avenue. Neither of these houses is available to tour, but Sowden has a great virtual tour on their site. You may have seen Enis House in Blade Runner and Westworld.
If you want to know more about Wright’s time in Los Angeles, I strongly recommend watching Artbound’s documentary That Far Corner: Frank Llord Wright in Los Angeles.
He is the reason that Hollyhock House is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, sadly not for Aline’s contributions.
The House
One of the first things you notice about Hollyhock House is how grand it is. Walking around the 5,000-square-foot building, you get a feel of how unusual the shape of the house is. Parts jut out, are stacked on top of each other, and spread out.
The house features Lloyd Wright’s influences at the time; Mayan and Aztec pictograms inspired Hollyhock and the other houses I mentioned. This house looks more like temple than a home–as well as the other homes Wright designed in Los Angeles.
For Hollyhock House, the dominant element is Wright’s abstraction of the hollyhock flower, Aline Barnsdall’s favorite and something she wanted to incorporate into the design. You can see both the abstraction and the flower all over the property. Can you see the similarity?
If you look closely at the exterior, you can see that the walls have a golden green, meant to blend into the hill.
I would love to sit in the living room and watch that beautiful Los Angeles sunset every night. In the end, Aline hated the design. She and her daughter slept in the house a handful of times before donating Olive Hill and the house to the city. Her stipulation for the gift was that it become a place for art and recreation. Now it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Tour
I won’t put on my architectural historian hat for this post and strongly encourage you to take the self-guided tour. The cost of the tour goes toward preserving the house–which is very important.
In 2015, the Hollyhock House reopened after several years of preservation. The exterior walls returned to their original golden green color, the damage from the 1994 earthquake was finally repaired, and worn carpets were made new again.
There are two things I noticed the last time I took the tour when the house reopened to the public that I hope that they have changed:
The Booklet
The booklet needs a map of the spaces so you know where you are, especially for those who don’t know the difference between a loggia and an inner peristyle.
The Drama
What the self-guided tour leaves out is the relationship between architect and client. For example, Aline hated Wright’s design and fired him in the middle of the project. They both were passionate about their vision and the project took years to complete as Wright was splitting his time on his project in Japan. The disagreements, drama, and stories of the architects who studied under Wright to go on to ultimately shape California architecture are popcorn-worthy.
The parts you can’t see
The upper floors will no longer be on tour because they are only accessible by stairs and, therefore, not accessible by all visitors.
Hours, cost, and other information
- Website: https://hollyhockhouse.org/
- Address: 4800 Hollywood Blvd.
- Cost: $7 for adults, $3 for seniors or students
- Other: There is a virtual tour where you can see the spaces that are no longer on the tour.
The art compound
The row of buildings on the east side of the park are the realized vision of Aline Barnsdall’s art utopia. Here you will find a theater, art classrooms, and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery. Unfortunately, she didn’t live to see her dream finished.
The design of the buildings show traces of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House but was built in the brutalist style, indicative of most public-use buildings built in the 1950s to 1970s. The grove of pine trees hides the most brutal parts of the buildings.
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (LAMAG)
LAMAG opened to the public in 1954 and features Los Angeles and California-based artists. LAMAG is a huge space; its main gallery is 10,000 square feet. It is perhaps daunting at first with rooms that beget rooms that invite you to easily spend hours winding through hallways, closets, and hidden nooks. When I visit LAMAG, I am reminded that this is one of my favorite galleries in Los Angeles, and I wonder why I don’t visit more often.
It has a very active schedule with exhibitions, artist talks, and workshops that help feed your inner artist.
- Website: https://www.lamag.org/
- Cost: Free
- Hours: Wednesday-Friday, 11:am-4:PM
Art classes & Theater
At the time of this publication, both the Barnsdall Gallery Theater and the Barnsdall Art Center and Junior Art Center are on hiatus with their programming. When there are updates, I will post them to my newsletter. There are two places to subscribe in this post.
Recreation
A place to sit and contemplate
The grounds, including the grove of pines, are open to the public from sunrise to sunset. The grass outside the fence of Hollyhock is great for picnicking and provides a great view of the city.
Once you know how to find Barnsdall Art Park, I hope you are able to spend some time there discovering new local artists and hearing the interesting story about how this park came to be.
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Comments (1)
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November 10, 2020 at 5:54 pm
[…] Read about the other Los Angeles everything spaces I have written about in Los Angeles– Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Barnsdall Park. […]