There is a board, according to that article… it just doesn’t have someone in charge of it, and they’ve been lax on supporting preservation:
Many commenters decrying the demolition asked why the house wasn’t protected, saying that it should have been on some sort of historic list. Rummerfield says that the reality of the matter is that the city of L.A. has been incredibly lax about that sort of designation for years, passing the onus onto citizens and architectural fans in the community. There’s no head of preservation in the city government, either, so when appeals or requests for historic designation are submitted to places like the planning committee or the Office of Historic Resources, they can sit for years before even being addressed, during which time the homes or buildings in question may either fall into disrepair or disappear altogether.
Which amounts to the same thing, really. So point taken!
And of course, there are still permitting processes for all sorts of things with regards to building, demolition, and renovation, like any other city/county.
Los Angeles has several means to protect historical buildings:
Historic Landmark Programs: The City of Los Angeles has designated over 1,200 historic places as Historic-Cultural Monuments (HCMs). In addition to the local Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument program, properties may also be designated by the federal National Register of Historic Places, and the state California Register of Historical Resources¹.
Preservation Incentives: The city offers several incentives for the preservation of historic properties. These include the Mills Act Historical Property Contract Program, which provides potential property tax reductions to help offset the costs of substantial rehabilitation and restoration of buildings². There’s also a Federal Rehabilitation Tax Credit for owners of properties that are listed or eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places².
California Historical Building Code (CHBC): Owners of qualified historic properties are entitled to use the CHBC for rehabilitation of older structures, which are typically out of conformance with code requirements for new construction².
Adaptive Reuse Ordinance: This ordinance has facilitated the conversion of dozens of historic and under-utilized structures into several thousand new housing units².
Conservation Easements: Easements offer owners of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places a one-time federal income tax deduction for the donation of a partial interest in a property to a qualified preservation organization or government agency².
To find out whether a particular property in the City of Los Angeles has a historic designation or has been previously identified as eligible for historic designation, you can visit the Zoning Information and Map Access System (ZIMAS) database¹.
You can’t demolish a home willy-nilly without permission from the City of Los Angeles, and they approved this home being demolished. What’s not to understand?
You said “no home in la requires a permit from the city” and now you’re saying it does? that’s what I’m attempting to square here. If you meant that there is a permitting process for demolition (which yes, of course, that’s true in any city), why did you say that there is not one? You seem to be contradicting yourself here.
This is a senseless statement. ‘Open floor plans’, giant walk in showers, wine cellars and all the other drivel of “modern living” homes, are choices, not needs. No one NEEDs these things to have a livable house. Retrofitting electric outlets and running precious audiophile speakerwires aren’t hard to do, and can be done without destroying old homes. You can even ruin the interior craftsmanship of an old victorian without tearing down the exterior. You greatly misunderstand the difference between the needs of a home and the desires of trendy upper class interior design.
The original house was a paltry 2800 sq ft, single story, single pool, no 8 car garage, and no 12’ ceilings throughout. How could anybody possibly be expected live in such a shithole?
And none of those have teeth. In other countries you can’t legally change your own home without a permit from the heritage authorities if you live in a listed building. In the US it’s all incentives and suggestions.
well, this house was not some mass-assembled tract house in suburbia, it was a custom-built home in a very particular style by a known architect, built in freakin’ BRENTWOOD, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles.
I like Chris Pratt’s movies. i know nothing really about his personal life. I just wish that he and his wife would’ve seen fit to purchase land and build a house somewhere else, saving this one, because it really looked like a great place.
Wiring and plumbing do occasionally need to be upgraded, perhaps for more outlets, but for sure to make sure there is no lead or asbestos, or aluminum wire, or an old fuse box.
For me the era of the large leather couch and large 52" television are over. I watch videos on my laptop. Youtube shorts were meant to be watched on the phone. I like houses that went back to old style sitting rooms for reading books.
The mid-century furniture is nice as well…because you don’t need a heavy desk to hold a laptop, or large wooden/steel filling cabinets for paperwork.
With work from home, people don’t really want open concept thought, you need a place to make calls from, lock the pet in another room temporarily.
Ironically our needs are more aligned with the mid-century modernists than the 1970s suburban style housing.
I’ve lived in a total of 3 homes that were built before indoor plumbing.
Magically, a good general contractor (or mad DIY skills) is all that stands between such a home and having one or more bathrooms plus a more modern kitchen installed.
Some other renovations I have personal experience with:
insulation blown into old walls and attic spaces;
joist-twinning;
running new electrical conduit to add outlets;
adding wifi extenders throughout a home to support a single access point for all internet, cable, etc. via what was once the landline phone access;
putting a powder room in the space under the stairs.
The assumption that all Americans live in homes with 20"+ TVs, en-suite bathrooms, 2-car garages, etc. is quite telling.
Face it. If you have $12.5 million on a house just to tear it down, you probably don’t care what the rest of us think. I haven’t been able to find any comment from the Pratts on the subject, but the damage has already been done. The local preservation society had been warning it was going to happen since January and no one listened.
True enough… doesn’t mean it’s not a problem, though and that we can’t see such things as a springboard for activism about urban planning. I don’t know about you, but I’m beyond sick of people getting to do whatever they want without consequences just because they have managed to amass some wealth.
Perhaps this can be turned into some real reforms, then?
Now that you mention it… yes. For those who have yet to see that hilarious Wes Anderson flick — spoiler alert. I’m also reminded of Abe (James Caan) robbing a house of its entire contents, something that the Pratt’s “bettered” by making an entire house disappear.
