Hollyhock Guest House: Restoration Ahead

The Frank Lloyd Wright-structure, which sits near the Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Park, is soon to get some major love.

Thousands of historic homes around Los Angeles boast buildings in the backyard, smaller structures designed with the sole purpose of housing temporary visitors.

Of course, many guest houses are now used for storage, or as makeshift exercise rooms, or are rented out, but few get the full redo when the main house is updated.

There are exceptions, of course, like when a guest house is created one of the best-known architects in history. We speak of Frank Lloyd Wright, the visionary who not only designed Aline Barnsdall's beloved Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Park but two adjacent buildings, Residence A and Residence B.

Residence B was razed decades ago, but Residence A still stands not far from the freshly renovated main house. The nearly century-old landmark, which is perched upon a hilltop in East Hollywood, has been attracting new and longtime fans since its post-spiffy-up debut in February 2015.

Many of those Hollyhock-loving fans have strolled by the shuttered Residence A, knowing its general background but wondering about its future, a future that, in many respects, mirrors the future of historic buildings everywhere: It needed a whole bunch of TLC.

That's coming, in the form of a major renovation, starting in the fall of 2016.

The $3.2-million dollar project will be funded in part by the Community Redevelopment Excess Bond Proceeds, while Project Restore, in partnership with Councilmember Mitch O'Farrell, will "identify the balance of funds to complete the Project."

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The through-and-through renovation, which will include deeper "structural enhancements" as well as surface touch-ups, doesn't yet have a completion date. But once the tools are stowed, and the final inspection is wrapped, count on the opportunity to stroll through Residence A as part of your Hollyhock House tour ticket.

It's one of two Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes in LA that may be accessed by the public -- the other being the Hollyhock House, of course -- so architecture aficionados from all over will surely make the journey up that big, boulevard-close hill, in Hollywood, to see Residence A in all of its newly burnished, historically accurate splendor.

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