The Walter L. Dodge House in

West Hollywood, California West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...

, was an architecturally significant home, designed by

Irving Gill Irving John Gill (April 26, 1870 – October 7, 1936), was an American architect. He did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture. Twelve ...

in the Early Modern style. Though the Dodge House received significant recognition from architectural experts, it was targeted for redevelopment. A long preservation effort to shield it from the wrecking ball ultimately failed, ending with complete demolition in 1970. The Dodge House was replaced by apartments. American architectural historian

William Jordy William H. Jordy (1917 – 10 August 1997) was a leading American architectural historian. At the time of his death, Jordy was Henry Ledyard Goddard Professor Emeritus of Art History at Brown University, where he taught for many years. Jordy rec ...

and the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

ranked it among the 15 most architecturally significant American houses.

Design and early reaction

The 16-room house was designed by Gill in 1914 and built between 1914 and 1916 for Walter Luther Dodge, maker of "Tiz," a patented medicine for tired feet. The reinforced-concrete house blended Spanish Mission and Modern architectural styles. It also incorporated many technological innovations, including a kitchen-sink garbage disposal; an automatic car wash in the garage; plain, flush doors that swung on hidden hinges or slid into walls; a central vacuum cleaning system; sheet-metal doors; natural and unadorned (simply polished) wood surfaces indoors; and skylights and windows that provided for luminous sunlit interiors. The Dodge House was considered one of Gill's finest works, "revealing a functional asymmetry whose ornament was derived solely from the studied geometry of the sharp openings in plain walls." In 1921, ''House Beautiful'' published a profile of the Dodge House by

Eloise Roorbach Eloise Roorbach (April 17, 1868 – February 16, 1961) was an American artist, writer, editor, and critic. Early life and education Eloise Jenkins was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Lincoln, Illinois, daughter of John Jenkins (who was a judge) and ...

and noted:

This house, though unmistakably Californian, nevertheless exemplifies certain bold and novel ideas in design, construction and decoration that make it notable, even in this land where originality in architecture is to be expected.... It is without ornament save that furnished by vines, for he believes beauty should be organic and that no amount of ornament can redeem a badly designed structure. There is not even an overhanging roof to break the severity of the exterior, and as may be seen in the photograph, there is a distinction, a dignity about it that is classic. Mr Gill thinks there is nothing more arrestingly beautiful than a plain wall across which move cloud shadows or a silhouette of flower, and that no carving or frescoing could more perfectly finish a doorway or window than a vine or creeper.

History

1920s through early 1960s

Walter Dodge used the house as his retirement home until 1924, when he sold it to T. Morrison McKenna for $125,000. In 1939, the

Los Angeles Board of Education Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is a public school district in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is the largest public school system in California in terms of number of students and the 2nd largest public school district in ...

acquired the property in a contested condemnation action, and the house was never again put to full use. The Board paid McKenna $69,000 for the property and planned to build a high school or junior high school on the site. In 1951, however, the Board determined that a school was not needed in the area. The house was used briefly from 1961 to 1962 by the Fairfax High School adult education program.

Preservation efforts

Two developments began the process toward demolition. First, in 1963, the Board of Education declared the property a "surplus." Second, the following year, the

Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors (LACBOS) is the five-member governing body of Los Angeles County, California, United States. History On April 1, 1850 the citizens of Los Angeles elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first ...

rezoned the property to R-4, increasing the allowable development from eight to 200 units, making the site attractive for high-density, large apartment-building construction. To protect the building from demolition, local residents and architects formed the "Citizens' Committee to Save the Dodge House."

Esther McCoy Esther McCoy (November 18, 1904 in Horatio, Arkansas – December 30, 1989) was an American author and architectural historian who was instrumental in bringing the modern architecture of California to the attention of the world. Early life an ...

, architectural historian was active on the committee. She produced a 1965 film, "Dodge House 1916," as part of the preservation efforts. Under pressure from this group, the Board of Education turned down a $820,000 offer in September 1965 from a bidder unwilling to pledge to save the house. The Board of Education gave the Citizens' Committee several months to arrange for the sale of the property to a public agency, or else propose another means of saving it. Preservation efforts were stymied by public perception that, despite the opinions of architectural experts, the Dodge House was unremarkable. A writer in the ''Los Angeles Times'' noted that it could pass for a far more recent home and summed up the rationale for the public apathy toward it as follows:

In some ways, it's a house only an architect would love. Nothing noteworthy ever happened there, and it's not really old enough to claim historical status. Visually, it has neither the charm nor nostalgia of a 'period piece,' nor the spectacularly expressive design of many 'modern' residences. From the outside, it seems quite ordinary: two stories high, flat roofed, with undecorated white walls, simple rectangular metal windows, and a few arches to remind the viewer that he is in Los Angeles and not somewhere else.

In March 1966, the Board of Education sold the property to Beverly Hills financier Bart Lytton for $800,000. In May 1967, Lytton announced a $2.4 million development plan for the site. His scheme would have preserved the Dodge House and added on site seven separate three-story buildings, housing a total of 48 studio apartments. When Lytton's plan was announced, the ''Los Angeles Times'' headline read: "Saving of Dodge House Assured by Financier." But Lytton's plan fell apart when his business began declining. His toppled from control of his company, which the Equitable Savings & Loan Association acquired. The ''Los Angeles Times'' noted that, with the ouster of Lytton, the Dodge House "lost its protector." Efforts to block demolition continued into the late 1960s, as the

sought a Federal open-space grant to save the house. Famed architect

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. He ...

noted that the Dodge House was required study for architecture students throughout the world, and declared that demolition of the Dodge House would "not be a passing event ... it would become and epic, an international scandal." The ''Los Angeles Times'' pled: "Let this generation of Angelenos not be remembered as one that betrayed its successors for a few dollars."

Demolition and replacement with apartments

In November 1969, a lawsuit by the Citizens' Committee, seeking to stop the sale of the Dodge House, was rejected, and the house was sold to Riviera Management Company. The new owner demolished the house during a drenching rainstorm on February 9, 1970. On learning of the demolition, architect

Kurt Meyer Kurt Meyer (23 December 1910 – 23 December 1961) was an SS commander and convicted war criminal of Nazi Germany. He served in the Waffen-SS (the combat branch of the SS) and participated in the Battle of France, Operation Barbarossa, and ot ...

, who had fought for seven years to save the house, said, "This is like slashing a Rembrandt with a razor." The bulldozing of the Dodge House has been called one of "the most shameful chapters in L.A.'s legacy of self-destruction," and ''The New York Times'' called it a "tragic commentary on how we throw our national heritage away." Apartments were built on the site.

Lasting acclaim

Critical acclaim for the Dodge House has continued despite the demolition. Examples of the critical response include the following: * A leading American architectural historian

said, "I believe it to be among the 15 most significant American houses. ... Perhaps no house built before World War I so clearly anticipated the modern movement as it developed in Europe." * The

, which sought to save the Dodge House, also rated it among the 15 most architecturally significant residences in the United States. ''("Another Monday-morning wrecking has destroyed Irving Gill's 1916 Dodge House in Los Angeles, considered one of the 15 most significant houses in the history of American domestic architecture.")'' * Architectural historian

Henry-Russell Hitchcock Henry-Russell Hitchcock (1903–1987) was an American architectural historian, and for many years a professor at Smith College and New York University. His writings helped to define the characteristics of modernist architecture. Early life He ...

called the Dodge House a prophetic paradigm of Modernism in America. * The house led

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a wr ...

to consider Gill "an equal to

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

and

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

as a pioneer of the modernist movement." * Dr. Ludwig Glaeser, curator of architecture at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York, said, "Gill's new concepts, only today fully recognised, found their clearest expression in the Dodge House." * ''The New York Times'' called the Dodge House Gill's "masterwork." * The Historic American Buildings Survey called it a culmination of Gill's genius, and "a rare example of the early manifestations of the International Style, and also one of the great monuments of the early experimental architecture of reinforced concrete." * In 1965 architectural historian Esther McCoy produced a film, referred to as ''Dodge House, 1916'' based on its opening credits, which documented the house and the life of Irving Gill. The film was made in an attempt to save the house from demolition, but it failed. The film was rediscovered and restored in 2011, and it serves as one of the best surviving visual records of the building. Bemoaning the loss of the Dodge House, the ''Daily News'' wrote in 1991: "Mention the name Irving J. Gill, and anyone who values our local architectural heritage is bound to rant and fume. Here was one of our true cultural pioneers ... Gill's dream for a California architectural style was not the grandiose exotic palaces of a

; he designed for humans, on a human scale. And now most of his best work has been lost. ... His gorgeous Dodge House in West Hollywood is long gone." In December 2008, a panel of experts selected by the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

selected the Walter Dodge House as one of the top ten houses in Southern California. The ''Times'' wrote: "Hard to believe this Modernist treasure was torn down to make way for apartments, but it happened 38 years ago, when historic preservation was still an exotic notion here. ... Nowadays, Gill's historic home survives only through photographs, memory and reputation."

References

External links

*
Photographs of the Walter L. Dodge House from the American Architecture web sitePhotograph of Dodge House demolition in 1970, from Los Angeles Public Library photograph collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Walter L. Dodge House Houses in Los Angeles Buildings and structures in West Hollywood, California Houses completed in 1916 Demolished buildings and structures in Los Angeles Demolished buildings and structures in California Landmarks in Los Angeles Buildings and structures demolished in 1970 Historic American Buildings Survey in California Modernist architecture in California 1916 establishments in California 1970 disestablishments in California Former National Register of Historic Places in California