Hollyhock House Tours - Barnsdale Art Park

If you should venture forth to the opening of the 20th LAPS National this Sunday, 11/1 @ the Barnsdale Art Park (4800 Hollywood Blvd.) - do take the time to also tour Frank Lloyd Wright's fabulous Hollyhock House, located just across the way from the gallery. Wright, who died in 1959, built this home for iconoclast Aline Barnsdale, & due to its sharp angular planes, it looks rather like a Mayan temple. Tours for this structural wonder take place on Sundays @ 12:30, 1:30, 2:30 & 3:30 PM. The cost is $7.00 for adults, but well worth the price of admission. I recently did just that (see the "squinty" photo above) & had the good fortune to speak with an elderly woman on the tour, who had stayed in Wright's Imperial Hotel in Tokyo (sadly since demolished to rubble). Wright was often quoted as saying that he "...came to realize that the reality of a building was not the container but the space within." However, I think in all of Wright's dwellings I've had the good fortune to visit, both are equally exquisite, save for the kitchens...not so much.

Having also made the pilgrimage to Taliesin in Wisconsin, I was fascinated to read the back story on it recently in T. Coraghessan Boyle's book - "The Women." Boyle lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright home near Santa Barbara, & is the author of many other engaging books ("Drop City," "Talk Talk" & "The Inner Circle") that are consistently wonderful. As far as I am concerned, the man has yet to take a literary misstep.