Photo Essay: Lloyd Wright's Legacy Lives On at the Henry O. Bollman House

The construction of the Henry O. Bollman house in Los Angeles' Sunset Square Historic District is very much a story of sons. 

Henry's father was a prominent Hollywood man, Otto Bollman, president of the Dial Film Company (perhaps best known for the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat). 

Henry forged his own path as a builder/developer—and when he was planning for his own home to be built on North Ogden Drive in the early 1920s, he commissioned it from the son of one of the most notorious architects of the time. 

Year In Review: 2025 Updates to Past Posts

Los Angeles has been through a lot in the time that I've lived here. It took a big hit during the pandemic, and the homelessness crisis just keeps getting worse and worse. 

But nothing in my tenure here has compared to January 2025, when the entire city seemed to be surrounded by fire—and two communities were flattened in the blink of an eye. 

I can't even speak to what so many people went through, losing their homes and possessions and all sense of safety. I can only document a little bit of it, and help preserve the memory of some of our public places with the photos I've taken and the stories I've written. 

The more time that passes, the more it feels that I have a certain duty to share these stories and spread the word about places in danger of being lost, and places that have been spared and saved (including those from the Eaton and Palisades fires and the Sunset Fire at Runyon Canyon).

Because for as much as we mourn and grieve, we must also pay attention, intervene, and celebrate.

We couldn't manage to hold onto Pacific Dining Car. Or David Lynch. But the building that once housed Corky's returned to its former Googie glory. The Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park finally reopened. And The Los Angeles Breakfast Club turned 100.

While those all got their own new blog posts, here are the updates I made to older posts in 2025:

 

Photo Essay: Covina Bowl, Partially Preserved, Awaits Its Second Chance

It was New Year's Day. I was hung over but I'd managed to go on an adventure with the guy I was dating at the time, the same guy who'd wimped out on our New Year's Eve plans the night before. 

We were headed back to LA from Pomona, and he was driving. 

"Can we please drive by Covina Bowl?" I asked. 

"I don't want to go bowling..." he said, probably flatly, though I heard it as a whine. 

"I just want to see it."

And so we drove up to the mid-century bowling palace and walked in the front door. My date was sighing. 

I took a quick look around and said, "OK, I've seen it."

We turned around, walked away, and went back home. 

I didn't know back then that Covina Bowl would close for good in 2017. And that I would never get more than a passing glance at it in all its glory, never get the chance to roll a ball down its lanes. 

But life is full of strikes and gutters, ups and downs. 

 circa 2022

And fortunately, part of Covina Bowl still remains. And part of it will one day reopen to the public to enjoy once again. 

Photo Essay: Streamline Modernity in Silver Lake, Los Angeles

I'm a looky-loo, but I don't always like to be in people's homes while they're still living there. I'll make an occasional exception for a rare public tour—or if the house is listed for sale and lots of people are wandering through anyway. 

 

The "Silver Ridge" estate recently fit the bill on both marks—at the time, listed for $3.5 MM for five bedrooms, three baths, and a two-car garage below on a 13,900-square-foot lot. 

Photo Essay: Derby House, Lloyd Wright's Mayan Fortress of Yucca In Concrete [Updated for 2025]

Last updated 9/4/25 11:50 AM PT—The Derby House is for sale again. And recent photos and videos on TikTok and Instagram show a gutted interior, with walls ripped out and flooring pulled up. The real estate agent is marketing it as a "restoration opportunity," neglecting to show the true condition of the interior. Hopefully someone can get in there and fix whatever the previous owner was trying to fix and bring the house back to a period of historical splendor. 

I'd seen that the Lloyd Wright-designed Derby House in Glendale, California was for sale last year—and that I'd missed an open house. 

For months, I kept the real estate listing open as a tab on my web browser, just waiting and hoping for another open house to be scheduled. 

And then I gave up—and closed the tab. 

But I still kept my eyes open. 

 

And then, at the end of June, I had my chance again. And I didn't miss it this time. 

Photo Essay: Sowden House, The Great White Shark Fortress of Franklin Avenue

People have called it the "Jaws House"—probably only since the movie came out in theaters in 1975 (or maybe the year before, when the book came out).

But even before that, the Sowden House in Los Feliz, Los Angeles probably looked like a shark to passers-by.

And maybe its architect, Lloyd Wright (son of FLW), intended it to look that way.

After all, the Mayan Revival style incorporates iconography and symbology that would've been important to the pre-Columbian civilization. And apparently, the Mayans were terrified of the shark (or xoc)—their mighty jaws and impossibly large teeth used as hunting trophies and for trade, even in the inland parts of Mesoamerica.



The Sowden House was the last home built by the elder or younger Wright in this Mayan style, subsequently having come to be known as "Wrightian." And it sure made a splash.



Completed in 1926 at the behest of Wright's friend, photographer John Sowden, and his wife Ruth, the Sowden House—as it's still called, though they sold it in 1930 and it's currently on its 10th owner—greets you from the street with stepped pyramids, zigzags, and jagged peaks like teeth. You can't miss it, now that the overgrowth of yucca, palm, bird of paradise, and banana leaves no longer obscures the sidewalk or street view and leaves it starkly unenshrouded.

That's the first taste of the textured concrete or "textile" block ornamentation that the Wrights were, for a time, notorious for using. And you must pass underneath it—into the gaping mouth—in order to explore the rest of this fortress on Franklin Avenue.

First, you're greeted by entry gates of sculpted copper, with their green patina highlighting chevron-shaped plates lined up on vertical bars (the most Art Deco part of the entire house).

After entering a "cave-like" purgatory...



...and emerging out from under the interior "hood"...



...you walk out into the 6000-square-foot "rectangular doughnut," whose courtyard is no longer festooned with cascading bougainvillea in shocking pink, hacked away with nary a stubble left.



The water features out there have pretty much always been a point of contention, as Wright and the Sowdens disagreed on what should be there (if any at all). For a time, the courtyard featured water organs—but now there's a pool (which seems more ornamental than utilitarian).



Courtyard pillars help make the Sowden House resemble, say, the Palace of Sayil or The Governor's Palace of Uxmal—but looks can be deceiving. It's not the Mexican state of Yucatán; it's Hollywood!



And just like the Mayans, we like to celebrate the sun, water, harvest, and clouds here, too. Wright even incorporated their respective Mayan symbols into the textile blocks that surround the pool.

The open floor plan of the Sowden House is marked by side rooms—lit by skylights and accessed through sliding pocket doors—situated along a colonnade. Somewhere in there, there's a secret passageway, too.



And although the interior has been "updated" for "modern living," it hasn't yet been scrubbed of its secrets.

There are still those who believe that Elizabeth Short—a.k.a. "The Black Dahlia"—was slaughtered here, in the partial basement below the living room, before her remains were dumped in Leimert Park in 1947. She was only 22. Her murder is still officially unsolved.

And there may have been others, some of whom may have never left the basement.

Some are quick to point their fingers at the fifth owner of the Sowden House—Dr. George Hill Hodel, the "Hollywood gynecologist" who served as chief of staff and checked patients for venereal diseases (or "blood-sex diseases") at the First Street Clinic in Little Toyko/"Bronzeville," Los Angeles.

Funny enough, Dr. Hodel was also accused of hosting crazy "sex parties" while he lived at the Sowden House from 1945 to 1950.

But he was never convicted of any wrongdoing—sexual or otherwise.

Nevertheless, his fictionalized story was recently told by the TV series I Am the Night, shot in the Sowden House for historical accuracy.

L.A. Confidential, The Aviator, and other productions have also used it as a filming location.

Despite its possibly grisly history, it doesn't seem to scare people away. In fact, it seems to draw visitors and owners in—even though some who came before them never escaped.

Related Posts:
A Lloyd Wright Masterpiece, Commissioned By a Murdered Silent Film Star
Photo Essay: Neutra's Lovell Health House and Hollywood Supervillain Lair, Upon Its 90th Anniversary (Updated)

A Lloyd Wright Masterpiece, Commissioned By a Murdered Silent Film Star

There's a reason why the silent film-era residence in "The Oaks" enclave in Los Feliz designed by Lloyd Wright is still known as the Samuel-Novarro house.

Despite the fact that far more famous celebrities have called it home since—not the least of which are Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins (who rented it while working on On the Town in the early 1940s), Diane Keaton (who owned it 1988-1996), and Christina Ricci (who owned it in 2005 and sold it the next year).

But it's its two namesakes—Louis Samuel and his movie star boss, Mexican heartthrob Ramón Novarro—who put the Mayan Revival-style residence on the map.

And it was the controversy and change of ownership between them that kept it on the map.

Talent agent Louis Samuel had become the right-hand man of the swashbuckling silent film star—a second cousin of the Mexican actress Dolores del Río, and the de facto "Latin lover" successor to Rudolph Valentino, who'd become the first Latin American actor to reach such heights of stardom in silent movies.

Samuel's exact duties have become fuzzy over time. But whether he managed Novarro's business or simply assisted Novarro in all matters personal and professional, he was in the star's inner circle.

Novarro helped commission architect Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright) to build the home for Samuel in 1928. He didn't, however, pay for the house.

At least, he didn't intend to.

But in 1930, Novarro caught onto Samuel's scheme. His trusted companion had been siphoning money out of the film star's earnings and using it to pay the mortgage on his fancy house in an exclusive neighborhood.

Anyone else would've pressed charges—under different circumstances.

But the embezzler couldn't pay the money back anyway, as most of it had been lost in the 1929 stock market crash.

Combine that with the fact taht Novarro was closeted—and although he'd refused to marry a woman to hide his homosexuality, he had no intention on drawing public attention to his private affairs.

So, he struck a secret deal to take back the house—which was all Samuel had as collateral.

He lived there until the late 1930s.

It wasn't until 1968—when he was murdered by two brothers posing as gay hustlers—that his sexuality was finally exposed.



The Samuel-Novarro House has since been designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #130.

You don't have to know its backstory to appreciate the Art Deco hillside manor.



But it helps.



It may have been a "great era of Hollywood cinema" for some, but not everything was as it seemed back then.



Nevertheless, the home is a feather in Lloyd Wright's cap...



...a distinctive landmark on both Verde Oak Drive and Valley Oak Drive below it.



From the frosted glass entryway...



...you walk across both concrete and hardwood floors...



...to the horizontal rows of casement windows (flanked by built-in shelving) to take in the canyon view.



Although there are plenty of rooms throughout its almost 2700 square feet...



...it was the exterior, with its oxidized copper siding (somewhat enhanced by paint), that really intrigued me.



In fact, I preferred to view the interior from the outside...



...whether it was the concrete bathroom...



...or one of the three bedrooms.



It's impossible to seamlessly walk along the multi-level terraces and cross between the various balconies and patios.



You have to go back inside to get back outside.



That was probably the point.



And the climax comes when you reach the enclosed pool (fed by a fan-shaped fountain), which feels like the perfect confluence of indoors and outdoors.

The Samuel-Novarro House is currently for sale for a cool $4.2 million. 

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: Is the Arizona Biltmore Actually a Frank Lloyd Wright? (Does It Matter?)

Photo Essay: (Frank) Lloyd Wright's Joshua Tree Retreat

Standing in the Shadows of Towers In Hollywood (Or, What Will Happen to the Fonda Theatre?)

Hollywood is starting to look drastically different than when I first moved here in 2011 (not to mention when I first started visiting 10 years before that).

I always enjoyed the low profile of our non-existent skyline outside of Downtown LA—but now, newly-built towers are rising higher than ever before along Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards.

They may have "paved paradise" to "put up a parking lot"—but now they're building on top of all the parking lots, too.

Nobody's really thought about the shadow they'll be casting—even if they're not replacing historic structures, and are just being built around them.

Legacy businesses are losing their open air.



Take the Fonda Theatre, for example, which currently sits next to a parking lot that's slated to become the Hollywood and Gower Apartment Tower.

circa May 2011 (Screenshot via Google Street View)

It's had some nice breathing room on either side of it—and above it—not only since I first visited for a Twilight Singers concert in May 2011, when it had been branded the Music Box Theatre, but pretty much since it first opened in 1926 as the Carter DeHaven Music Box.



Back then, it operated as a musical comedy theatre with Ziegfeld-style revues with dancing, before becoming one of Hollywood's first legitimate theatres. And even when the outer lobby got its Skouras-style remodel in the 1940s, the theatre didn't have to cower away from the encroaching claws of developers.



Mid-century cladding would cover up the Spanish churrigueresque style facade designed by Morgan, Walls and Clements; and the Music Box would become the Pix in 1959 when Pacific Theatres took over for Fox West Coast.



Jaws would premiere at the Pix in 1975, and Rocky in1976—just before shutting down operations from 1977 to 1985, only for Pacific Theatres to convert it back to a legit operation in 1985 and rename it the Henry Fonda Theatre.



The Fonda/Music Box has always felt bigger than its 31,000 square feet—thanks to its open-air "roof garden," located above the lobby.



You can see the sky—and practically all of Hollywood Boulevard, looking west—standing up there, outside the colonnade that leads to a rooftop pavilion.



Legend has it that the enclosed rooftop space was used for illicit drinking, speakeasy-style, during Prohibition. Now, it's just a nice respite for all that's happening down below.



The construction of the apartment tower directly east of the Fonda Theatre won't affect its interiors.



Not the faux vintage of the inner lobby...



...the semi-original (but cladded) open standee area...



...or the auditorium, whose floor was filled in and flattened when the seats were removed to convert it into a concert venue.



The plasterwork surrounding the proscenium niches may get painted at some point in the future—but they won't be touched by the parking lot development next door.



The former fountain tiles will still cling to the walls...



...the gilded stenciling will shine...



...and the 1940s-era lighting fixtures will hang.



The Hieronymus Bosch-inspired wall hangings will simultaneously delight and horrify until someone has the good sense to remove them.



The embroidered balcony seats didn't even change in 2012, when the Music Box Theatre flipped back to the Fonda Theatre. No need to touch them now, with 22 stories and 252 feet of neighboring construction being added.

The Edwardian Ball, circa 2014

Hopefully, the vibration from the building project won't damage the historic structure. Hopefully, complaints from neighbors won't shut down late-night concerts, masquerade balls, and other performances. Mew residents of the new tower should know what they're getting into when they move in above a venue that's been operating for over nine decades.



But some things will change for sure—development or no development. They always do.



Film reels disappear from projection booths.



Orchestra pits get filled in and blocked off.



Theatre management was nervous about the new development really just for one reason: They needed a clear path through the alley behind the building, from N. El Centro Street to N. Gower Street, for trucks to load and unload rigging and gear for shows.

After appeals and petitions, the developer agreed to an easement that would allow Fonda-related delivery/loading traffic to pass through its above-ground parking structure.

It feels like a crisis was averted—and maybe one was.

But was it the only potential crisis that presented itself to this particular historic structure?

The Music Box/Fonda/Pix/Music Box/Fonda was deemed eligible for the National Register years ago—but it's not (yet) landmarked.

It's still vulnerable.

Historians will point out that the parcel directly east of the Fonda Theatre wasn't always unbuilt—at some point between the 1960s and 1980s, the building that once housed the Hollywood Gun Shop was razed and, well, paved for a parking lot. (See historic photos here.)

The current plan is better than demolishing an extant structure.

But I kind of love all the parking in LA.

And I'm not sure I'm willing to witness LA turning into NYC.

Related Posts:
Photo Essay: The Globe Theatre (formerly Morosco), Under Construction
Photo Essay: The Wiltern Theatre, Public Areas
Mexican Wrestling In a Mayan Porno Palace