Entropy, huh? Couldn’t the historic house be enjoyed a bit longer before the universe entered the degenerate era?
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Thinking of starting an historic house contracting company. We can “Ship of Theseus” your historic home, slowly changing it over time so it’s always simultaneously preserved and updated to how you like it.
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“… walls cost money” 
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My last house was built about 200 years ago, when open coal fires were the standard method of heating. Over the centuries ot got upgraded to include running water and flushing lavatories, gas central heating, electricity, and optic fibre internet by the time I sold it. The original 9-inch pine floorboards and the Georgian sash windows were still there. Also a working open coal fire.
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Buildings are evolving, in some case it;s easier to bulldoze and rebuild from scratch, but in most cases the exteriors could be preserved, and even the more peculiar rooms, while remodeling the house. There have been some extreme cases where an old brick building that had structural damages, was basically emptied and rebuilt inside with a reinforced concrete structure.
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Re these quotes - in the UK the relevant authorities get to decide what is listed. The owner has no real say at all. And once listed, to do stuff that contravenes the listing is a criminal offence. We take our built heritage seriously. But then, we’ve got a lot more of it. 
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What constitutes a livable house is subjective. What one person might consider “drivel” might be a necessity for someone else. Victorian homes were designed in the 19th century based on the standards and needs of that time. Most of them were not designed to accommodate electricity or indoor plumbing since those were not considered necessary to make a house livable. However, today, they are a necessity. While they can be retrofitted to meet modern standards, their original design and standards are rooted in the 19th century. Upgrading them to meet today’s standards requires extensive work, and even then, compromises might be necessary since today’s needs differ from those of the past. Starting with a house designed for modern living and standards, from start to finish, is better.
Let’s use cars as an example since they have been mentioned before. You could retrofit a Ford Model T with modern features such as a new engine, seatbelts, airbags, emission standards, EPA mileage, ABS brakes, stereo, radio, power steering, crash protection, MFD displays, and a heater. However, even with these upgrades, it would never meet modern car standards or modern needs and lifestyles. It would be better to leave it on display in a museum, car show, or parade rather than try to use it as a daily driver today.
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It was mistyped. It was meant to read, “A home demolition in Los Angeles, private or otherwise, requires a permit from the city.”
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Okay, thanks for clarifying. Maybe you can see my confusion then?
I don’t think anyone ever said that the city was not on the hook for not prioritizing historical preservation. Clearly their lack of support for that contributed to this particular house being torn down. But Pratt made the choice to tear it down, despite what some believe are its historical significance.
And ultimately, historical preservation is not about aesthetics (which is highly subjective), but about whether or not something is worth preserving from a historical point of view. And as others have noted, it’s entirely possible to update a house and preserve its historical character at the same time. 
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The home inspector I knew told me “Don’t buy anything built after the moon landing” and he knew his shit. I have a nice ‘63 ranch and I had to replace all the plumbing but the house is solid. Anything that chucklehead has built on that lot now will be inferior in every way to what he has torn down. Dumbass
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How many mid-century houses are enough? Just think, in 50 years folks could be arguing in favor of saving suburban split-levels.
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sigh No one is saying preserve all mid-century moderns. This particular house is a specific style of home from that period by a well-known architect that had landscaping by a pioneer in that field, and likely had historical significance as a result. So, this isn’t about what people might find attractive, as much as what is worth saving in terms of historical significance. I’m really not sure why that’s some sort of controversial point. We maintain all sorts of places not because they are beautiful, but because that have historical value to understand how people lived in the past. The generation that first bought these homes are now dying out, and I’d argue that there is value in saving at least some of these homes that were common during that era.
But part of the reason why we’re ABLE to preserve so many mid-century modern homes, is that they were actually well built, compared to lots of lots of housing going up today. I have a friend who lives in a neighborhood full of houses built between the 50s and 70s. People who get homes their either remodel or tear down and build new. The ones that are new builds tend to be eyesores, while the remodels tend to look nice and not overpower the rather modest sized lots.
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it is kind of a pain to run rear speaker wires if the side walls aren’t in the right place. Not tear down historic architecture kind of pain, but…
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Always.
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Pratt’s thought process:
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I never said all Americans live in such homes, but a 20" TV is small and cheap, and most Americans have much bigger TVs. A two-bedroom, two-bath house and a two-car garage are hardly extravagant and quite modest. It’s quite blue-collar middle class. This house did not meet Pratt’s needs, but the land it sits on does because it’s directly across from his wife’s mother, Schwarzenegger’s mother, Maria Shriver. So he bought the house for the land it sits on and not the house. This is exactly what happened to my late father’s house, which was built in 1948, and it was bought for the land it sits on, not the house.
Was your late father’s house designed by a seminal period architect, landscaped by a seminal garden designer, and featured in architectural magazines?
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Rich guy wanted it gone. If it was gorgeous and of historic interest, then that would mean the way our society decides value sucks and we’d have to question if rich people really make so much better decisions than everyone else. Ergo the house was unattractive and uninteresting. Besides, when you’ve seen one redwood mid-century house you’ve seen them all, right?
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Today I drove down Georgetown Pike in Northern VA. If you ever need evidence that as a class, the rich have no taste, just take a ride down that road. Gag-inducing, tasteless, and monstrous monuments to conspicuous consumption line both sides of the road, being sold for millions of dollars, mostly new construction that has gone up within the last 10-15 years to “suit” the “needs” of terrible people. Exactly the kind of house that beautiful, human-scale mid-century homes are being demolished for. It saddens me every time I have to drive that way.
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Speculation from the Robb Report, no traiter to its imagined class
It’s probably little wonder that Pratt and Schwarzenegger selected the Zimmerman house as the lot they wanted, because the tree-shaded property happens to sit almost directly across the street from a two-house compound owned by Schwarzenegger’s mother Maria Shriver. Other nearby neighbors include Arianna Huffington and Sofia Richie.
that may explain the choice of lot, and well, this piece of architecture was simply standing in the way. what value can the intangible possibly have next to the desire of someone with tangible cash?
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