Ennis Brown

Yesterday,  Joe and I decided to hike in Griffith Park. The park is so beautiful and massive that often when you walk, you find it difficult to pick a point to turn around because you are just so curious about what's coming next. 

We followed a trail MJC and I had taken before, but when we got to my regular turning around point, I urged Joe to keep on walking. 

As we marched along the north side of the observatory, the Hollywood sign came into view. It seemed so close that it was not a big decision to try to walk as close to we could to it. 

We walked for another 30 minutes before we realized we'd already been gone almost two hours. We wound back around the southwest side of the observatory and I took Joe down the path we normally use to go home. I wanted to show him a little treasure I found.

When we moved to Los Feliz, I was excited to learn there were 2 Frank Lloyd Wright homes in our neighborhood. 

I first spotted the Ennis house as MJC and I were hiking back from the Observatory one afternoon last winter. 

You could see it looming, high on a hill if you look just between two houses and know what you are looking for. I did not know anything about the house but I could recognize it as FLW's and was thrilled to see it. That afternoon, I googled and found that the Ennis House is in danger of disintegrating. I think it was built in 1924. FLW was really interested in using materials from the site where the building was erected and making the home appear to rise from the landscape as if it is a part of it. For this home, Wright used the naturally occurring limestone sand to make concrete bricks. 

Walking in the park, the sheer hillsides beside the trails are made of the same limestone. The cliffs look rock, but lift your leg and drag your shoe down the side, and a stream of limestone pebbles will follow your foot back onto the path (which is composed of the same sand).

This is a big reason the Ennis house is disintegrating. 

I wanted to show Joe the Ennis glimpse yesterday, but suddenly it seemed closer and maybe even possible to find. We decided to accept the adventure and wound back up the hill until it was right in front of us.

You can see this house, again if you know what to look for, in the hills above Los Feliz. There is a great glimpse from the parking lot of our Albertsons so I knew there was a good chance Joe would recognize it. 

The Ennis house is breathtaking. It absolutely blends into the hillside and looms above it at the same time. The house looks like it was there before anything else and has remained as Los Angeles spring up around it. 

This house looks like a Mayan ruin more than someone's residence. Because the concrete is made from the same material as the local typography, the bricks look warm and natural instead of cold and austere. The classic prairie windows are another beautiful contrast against the brick.

I can't imagine how exciting it would be to see the inside. 

When I look around at all of the Brady Bunch style 60s houses in LA and the samey Mc Mansions in Glendale and the Valley, it's so amazing that there is the possibility (if you have the Ennis fortune and a talent like Frank Lloyd Wright building you a home) to create such beauty.