LLOYD WRIGHT'S FORTRESS ON DOHENY
A house built to keep the world out, his father's shadow with it
SANCTUARIES LA EXPLORES THE QUIETER SIDE OF LOS ANGELES THROUGH DESIGN.
ROOTED IN THE BELIEF THAT SANCTUARY EXISTS EVERYWHERE, OFTEN HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHELBY NICO DIAMOND
On a corner of the Norma Triangle section of Doheny Drive, a few doors from one of Marilyn Monroe’s first LA apartments, there’s a house that looks like it doesn’t want you to enter. Blunt walls. Block stacked on block. From the sidewalk it reads as a fortress — closed, cubist, almost cold.
Lloyd Wright built it in 1927 as his home and his office, and he never left. Fifty-one years in the same rooms, until he died in 1978. Home upstairs, studio below, the two stacked on a lot you could cross in under a minute.
You’ve probably driven past it and credited his father; Happy Father’s Day, Lloyd.
