Hollyhock House

Hollyhock House was designed by America’s most important 20th-century architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was commissioned by oil heiress and theatre producer Aline Barnsdall. It was built between 1919 and 1921. Aline Barnsdall was also a philanthropist and in 1927 gave the house and the surrounding twelve acres atop Olive Hill (now Barnsdall Park) to the City of Los Angeles as a memorial to her father Theodore.

Hollyhock House is named for Barnsdall’s favorite flower – the hollyhock. Wright created stylized representations of the hollyhock plant throughout the house, which include the ornamental art stone, textiles, furniture, and striking art glass. In 2012, Hollyhock House underwent an extensive restoration of the public rooms, which reopened to visitors in 2015. Hollyhock House is the only Frank Lloyd Wright residence in Los Angeles open to the public.

On July 7, 2019, Hollyhock House was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of “The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright,” which includes eight sites spanning 50 years of Wright’s career. The collection represents the first modern architecture designation for the U.S. In addition to Hollyhock House (Los Angeles’s first World Heritage Site), the group inscription includes Unity Temple (constructed 1906-09, Oak Park, Illinois), the Frederick C. Robie House (constructed 1910, Chicago), Taliesin (begun 1911, Spring Green, Wisconsin), Fallingwater (constructed 1936-39, Mill Run, Pennsylvania), the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs House (constructed 1936-37, Madison, Wisconsin), Taliesin West (begun 1938, Scottsdale, Arizona), and the Solomon Guggenheim Museum (completed 1959, New York). There are more than 1,000 World Heritage sites around the world, and the group of Wright sites is now among only 24 sites in the United States. The collection represents the first modern architecture designation in the country on the prestigious list. Hollyhock House is LA’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.