National Register of Historic Places

Freeman, Samuel, House

Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California
Listed
October 13, 1971
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
71000146

About this property

The Samuel Freeman House (also known as the Samuel and Harriet Freeman House) is a house at 1962 Glencoe Way in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles in California, United States. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with a mixture of Islamic and Maya architectural elements, it was completed in 1925 for the jewelry salesman Sam Freeman and his wife Harriet, a teacher. The house is the smallest of four concrete textile block houses that Wright designed in Greater Los Angeles in the 1920s, the others being La Miniatura, the Storer House, and the Ennis House. The Freeman House is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and California Historical Landmark, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Freeman House consists of an L-shaped structure with a detached garage, which sit on the slope of a hill. The exterior is built of 12,000 concrete textile blocks, which are alternately plain in design or decorated with engraved patterns. There are double-story corner windows and various terraces, including a rooftop terrace. Inside, the house has at least 2,500 square feet (230 m2) of space, split across two levels. It has an inverted floor plan, with a kitchen and a living–dining room on the upper level, as well as two bedrooms on the lower level. Wright's protégé Rudolph Schindler designed most of the furniture, while Wright himself created some pieces. The house lacks a traditional foundation, instead being supported on textile-block retaining walls; the southern part of the house hangs above the hillside. Sam and Harriet Freeman may have commissioned Wright to design the house after hearing about him through Harriet's sister. A new-building permit was issued in April 1924, and the structure was substantially completed in March 1925. The Freemans lived in the house for over a half-century, using it for avant-garde salons. After Sam died, Harriet donated the house in 1984 to the University of Southern California (USC), which tried to renovate it over the next four decades. The house had deteriorated over the years and was damaged further during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and restoration efforts proceeded slowly during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. USC sold the house in 2022 to the real-estate developer Richard Weintraub.

Location

1962 Glencoe Way
Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California
34.10590, -118.33821

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

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0.1 mi
Montecito Apartments
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0.2 mi
Whitley Heights Historic District
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Canterbury Apartment Hotel, The
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0.3 mi

Nearby Battles

Siege of Los Angeles
1846Mexican-American War
6.6 mi

Questions about this property

When was Freeman, Samuel, House listed on the National Register?

Freeman, Samuel, House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 13, 1971.

What type of historic resource is Freeman, Samuel, House?

Freeman, Samuel, House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Freeman, Samuel, House?

The period of significance for Freeman, Samuel, House is recorded as the industrial era.

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