Archinect - News

Home owned by late Sea Ranch architect George Homsey lists for $2.45 million

2024-11-15T12:15:00-05:00

The home once owned by one of the leading late-modernist figures in Northern California—the EHDD co-founder George Homsey’s exemplary Third Bay Tradition style former personal residence in San Francisco—is now for sale for $2.45 million via Superstructur.

The online brokerage, which claims to focus "solely on architecture and design with integrity," has the listing in the Liberty Hill Historic District. They say: "The house is in very original condition and now requires a custodian who is sensitive to the building's architectural importance and to the Homsey family's wishes that it may be carefully restored and preserved for the enjoyment of future generations."

Homsey passed away at the age of 93 in April of 2019. Last month in the region, we also highlighted the listing of Julia Morgan's original 1908 home in Berkeley for $1.9 million.

The dispute over the Chrysler Building’s future just got even murkier

2024-10-23T17:33:00-04:00

Several local New York outlets have reported an update on the financial dispute between the Chrysler Building’s owner-operator RFR and The Cooper Union, which has held the land use rights to its lot since 1902.

The Austrian-based developer purchased William Van Alen’s landmarked design for $150 million in 2019 and is now being threatened with eviction by the college after reportedly not paying rent since May. RFR in turn filed a lawsuit last month, claiming "an improper and fatally defective eviction proceeding" on the part of Cooper Union.

The ground rent is now expected to increase to $41 million by 2028, adding to the challenges posed by its inability to retain tenants because of poor cell phone reception and unsanitary taps. The suit also claims Cooper Union's reaction to student-led anti-war protests this past year has led others to withdraw. The college has since called these claims "irrelevant, scandalous, and prejudicial.”

Eileen Gray’s modernist 1934 Tempe à Pailla home is for sale in the French Riviera

2024-10-16T10:47:00-04:00

The second-ever built Eileen Gray home design from 1934 has hit the local real estate market in France’s Côte d'Azur region for €3.5 million ($3.87 million USD).

The home is not far away from Gray’s earlier historic E-1027 villa in Roquebrune-Cap-Martim and boasts 8 bedrooms with 5 baths. The property has been restored several times after being looted by Nazis during World War II, according to The Spaces. Gray died in 1976 after designing more than 40 buildings. Only two of which – Tempe à Pailla and E-1027 – were ever constructed.

Image: Courtesy of Engel & Völkers

Julia Morgan’s first home design lists for $1.9 million in Berkeley

2024-10-02T18:08:00-04:00

Julia Morgan’s first residential design completed after opening her own practice has hit the real estate market in the Bay Area after listing for the first time in 50 years. The 116-year-old home owned by architect Claude Stoller until his death last year in Berkeley is just steps from UC Berkeley’s campus and includes four bedrooms and 3.5 baths in a 2,555-square-foot envelope.

The listing is for $1.9 million. According to SFGate.com, which first reported the news last week, "The property is also a mix of Morgan’s original vision and contemporary amenities: The 4,182-square-foot lot hosts the home as well as an outbuilding — itself a diminutive replica of the main house — currently used as a studio, and a redwood board and batten garage with a 220-volt power outlet. Established maple and redwood trees as well as a vine-covered pergola put the finishing touches on this historic landscape."

Image: Peter Lyons/Claudia Mills Real Estate Team

Morgan, who designed the famed Hearst Castle ...

Myron Goldfinger's personal New Mexico home lists for $1.69 million in Santa Fe

2024-09-20T12:10:00-04:00

The personal vacation retreat that the late Myron Goldfinger designed for himself in New Mexico in 1996 is now for sale for $1.69 million from Sotheby’s International Realty near Santa Fe. The property sits on 29 acres in Santa Fe’s Los Caminitos subdivision with 2,100 square feet and a one-bedroom/two-bath mix in an open floor plan. Goldfinger’s design reflects the "intuitive" sensibilities endemic to local Southwestern art-making traditions that he found upon relocating to the area later in life. Goldfinger died last July 20th at the age of 90 after earning acclaim through his many private residential designs in the New York City suburbs.

Image: Mediakingsmen for Sotheby’s International Realty

Frank Lloyd Wright's first private commission on the market for $1.98 million in Illinois

2024-09-17T17:30:00-04:00

Frank Lloyd Wright’s first independent commission in River Forest, Illinois has hit the local real estate market for just under $2 million. The historic 1894 Winslow House was the young architect’s first after leaving Adler & Sullivan’s Chicago office, reports Blair Kamin.

Christie’s International listed the 5,000-square-foot/five-bedroom property, which was restored recently for $1.3 million. Wright credits the nascent underpinnings of the Prairie Style to its development in several sources including his biography per Crain’s. The National Register of Historic Places added the landmark to its database in 1970.

Wright’s early Warren Hickox House in nearby Kankakee, Illinois also hit the market in March after being held in private hands for 48 years.

Ye’s gutted Tadao Ando home is purchased by a crowd-sourced real estate investment startup

2024-08-27T12:25:00-04:00

An upstart California property investment venture named Belwood Investments has announced the signing of a purchasing agreement for the Malibu home Tadao Ando designed for Richard Sachs (and later purchased by Kanye West) in 2013. News of the announcement was made public on Monday after the home was placed on the market for a discounted price of $39 million this spring. In a press release, the firm states the deal was made for under $22 million.

The rapper-cum-fashion mogul’s devastating handiwork might otherwise be an obvious drawback. However, the firm, which promotes a crowdsourcing model of ownership, says it plans on spending $5 million to restore its interiors to their original state (the home was worth $75 million when it was constructed). The renovation is expected to take between 12 and 16 months, according to their announcement.

Ray Kappe's Rustic Canyon marvel lists for $4.99 million in Santa Monica

2024-08-26T16:40:00-04:00

A significant Ray Kappe design, the 1984 Borghei-Cookston Residence in Rustic Canyon, is available for purchase after listing for $4.99 million recently in Santa Monica, California. The 3-bed, 4-bath home is 3,574 square feet and offers a dramatic vaulted glass half-domed facade with concrete masonry massing and steel featuring prominently throughout an atypical (for Kappe’s palette) and vertically-oriented design beset by several outdoor balconies.

Its listing follows that of the SCI-Arc cofounder's 1991 Keeler House in nearby Pacific Palisades for $12 million. Another late Kappe, his final residential design in Los Angeles, went on the market last November for $4.2 million. Kappe died in 2019 with a portfolio of around 100 private home designs. Our 2016 Archinect One-to-One interview with the late architect is available here.

Image courtesy Christie's International Real Estate SoCal

Image courtesy Christie's International Re...

Faced with looming condo safety reforms, Florida frets a new real estate 'crisis'

2024-08-19T18:28:00-04:00

Post-Champlain Towers South tragedy condo building crackdowns are coming and now Florida could be facing its biggest real estate “crisis” in decades, NBC reports. Prices have dipped nearly 40% in some areas after a rash of new laws offloaded proactive maintenance costs onto the HOAs, triggering a simultaneous gold rush for redevelopments and subsequent preservation fight statewide.

One concerned Floridian told the network it added to her personal cost of living concerns (“Every penny I make goes towards that concrete restoration.”) In some cases, the cost of repairs has been reported at northwards of $100,000 per unit. Three-quarters of all condo dwellers in the state now inhabit structures that are more than 30 years old. As NBC says, these are the “last bastions of relatively affordable housing along Florida’s coastline.“

One of I.M. Pei’s Beacon Court townhouses list for $1.45 million in Philadelphia

2024-08-19T16:10:00-04:00

A 2,000-square-foot Society Hill townhouse included in I.M. Pei’s 1968 Bingham Court village design is for sale in Philadelphia for $1.45 million. Coldwell Banker has the listing for this one, which can be seen as a “rare” opportunity and should not be confused with Pei’s earlier Society Hill Towers complex not far away. The home boasts a total of three beds and two full bathrooms. Our preview of Pei’s new full-scale retrospective, on view until next January at the M+ museum in Hong Kong, can be read in full here.

Oceanwide Plaza auction rumored for mid-September after buyers' interest springs

2024-08-19T15:27:00-04:00

Multiple new bids to takeover the unfinished Oceanwide Plaza complex in downtown LA were reported last week in what could be a positive sign for its future. As per connectcre.com's reporting, an auction has been scheduled for “mid-September.” The update comes after months of speculation as to the future of the graffiti-tagged towers and a few short weeks after a new "saw horse" bidder had dropped their inquiry without submitting any offers.

“A key hurdle that any buyer would need to surmount is the question of financing: not so much to acquire the project, but rather to finish construction on it. The project has been appraised as-is at $434 million by Colliers as part of the Oceanwide Plaza bankruptcy proceedings. Completing the three-tower residential, retail and hotel complex could mean spending twice that amount,” their report reminds us.

(The 1.4-million-square-foot CallisonRTKL design was abandoned in 2020 and now stands as perhaps the largest unfinished project in the United ...

Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Winn House is for sale at $1.85 million

2024-08-06T17:56:00-04:00

A unique Frank Lloyd Wright home in the historic Parkwyn Village community in Kalamazoo County, Michigan, is for sale after listing for $1.85 million.

The two-story Robert D. and Winifred L. Winn House from the architect’s Usonian period was built in 1950 and features a similar three-bedroom layout shared by a pair of Wright designs located nearby in The Acres that went on the market last September.

Image courtesy Fred Taber/Jacqua Realtors

Inside, surviving original built-ins can be found along with 2.5 baths. The 2,469-square-foot design received a total of $800,000 in renovations after being purchased by the current homeowner for just $200,000 in 2012, according to Realtor.com. Local firm Jacqua Realtors is listed as the sale agent.

Image courtesy Fred Taber/Jacqua Realtors

Artnet says this is the last home designed by Wright for the Parkwyn Village community, which he began planning in the early 1940s with a group of employees from the pharmaceutical manufacturer Upjohn Company....

Can the Chrysler Building still endure against imposing contemporary neighbors?

2024-07-18T20:05:00-04:00

Is the Chrysler Building’s reputation enough for it to endure as an icon, or is it at risk of fading away from the skyline, as newer, taller and glitzier glass buildings surround it?

William Van Alen’s iconic masterpiece of the Art Deco style (which topped out just six days before the stock market crash of 1929) is now facing financial uncertainties after its pre-pandemic sale for just $150 million to an Austrian developer and New York-based CRE firm. The recent bankruptcy of the former company, Signa, has prompted questions about its future.

The Times reports more than half (650,000 square feet) of its rentable spaces are now vacant. The building's plight resembles slightly that of the Flatiron Building, which was finally sold to a local residential developer late last year.

The Oceanwide Plaza dilemma: What should LA do?

2024-07-01T14:30:00-04:00

With a potential fire sale of the residential, hotel and retail project approaching, a far more complex and expensive question looms over one of the region’s all-time real estate catastrophes: Can it be saved from the wrecking ball?

With the fate of LA’s graffiti-tagged Oceanwide Plaza in the balance, the LA Times' Roger Vincent looked into the lack of viable options, finding several CRE experts’ opinions that simply "it’s not worth the risk" trying to "fix" the currently 60% complete three-tower development. This raises several intriguing, if not "unimaginable," potentialities: The complex could be demolished (an option the paper reported in May) or continue in new hands following a fire sale. Its most recently reported value was just $485 million.

Oceanwide Plaza, LA's unfinished high-rise graffiti mecca, faces impending sale

2024-05-10T12:00:00-04:00

The Chinese owners of the stalled residential, hotel and retail complex towering over Crypto.com Arena have hired real estate brokers to sell the property to buyers who could restart the project after work stopped in 2019. Taggers recently covered its outer walls with graffiti visible from far away.

The LA Times also reports the brokerage firm Colliers to have submitted an application estimating the property’s current value at $485 million and stating it is still just 60% completed. Another $865 million would be required to finish the block-scale development designed by CallisonRTKL. Some had speculated it could be demolished. Costs for the cleanup of possibly the greatest graffiti takeover of recent memory have been reported at $3.8 million.

Owners of Marilyn Monroe's last residence sue Los Angeles for right to demolish it

2024-05-08T18:27:00-04:00

Alleging an "abuse of power" by Los Angeles city officials, the owners of Marilyn Monroe's former Brentwood home are suing the city to block an effort to have the structure declared a historic-culture landmark, which would prevent its demolition. The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit [...] alleges "illegal and unconstitutional conduct" by the city "with respect to the house where Marilyn Monroe occasionally lived for a mere six months before she tragically committed suicide 61 years ago."

The LA Times (which has been reporting on the story since January of this year when the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission recommended landmark status for the former Monroe residence) writes that the lawsuit was filed by billionaire heiress Brinah Milstein and her TV producer husband Roy Bank, who also own the home next door and purchased the contested mansion in 2023 with the intent to demolish it and merge both properties.

The preservation fight involving the Marilyn Monroe house follows the public uproar over the demolition of Craig Ellwood's 1950 Zimmerman House in Los Angeles by its new owners, actor Chris Pratt and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger, last month.

New 'Zillow Gone Wild' HGTV show to launch inspired by popular Instagram account

2024-05-02T12:00:00-04:00

Friday, May 3rd, will see the launch of a new show on HGTV inspired by the popular Instagram account Zillow Gone Wild. The show, which bears the same name as the social media account, will offer insights into “exceptionally weird, wacky, and wild properties that sellers put on the market every day.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zillow Gone Wild (@zillowgonewild)

Hosted by actor and comedian Jack McBrayer, the series will feature characters from non-traditional homes with distinctive decor and imaginative architecture. The history of each will be explored, alongside backstories from buyers and sellers. Among the homes set to be featured are a house in Berkeley, California, designed by a jazz musician, and a home in New Orleans with an eclectic parlor lounge.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zillow Gone Wild (@zillowgonewild)

The run of nine weekly episodes will conclude with HGTV awarding one home the accolade of “wild...

Marcel Breuer's 1950 Marshad House is on the market for $1.8 million

2024-05-01T12:23:00-04:00

Marcel Breuer’s restored 1950 Marshad House in the Hudson Valley has been listed with an asking price of $1.8 million. The residence at 204 Cleveland Street in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, is a three-bedroom design with 1.5 bathrooms and has an interesting history from the original owner's affiliation with Look magazine and relation to the influential sculpture garden installation that was exhibited 75 years ago at MoMA.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. Galerie noted it includes a 290-square-foot converted art studio in the former garage.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

Sotheby’s (the art auctioneers) recently bought Breuer’s brutalist landmark Whitney Museum of American Art building in Manhattan for $100 million.

Image: Dot Record Media/Julia B. for Sotheby’s International Realty

Eric Owen Moss’ first LA home relists for $10.95 million

2024-04-25T18:39:00-04:00

Eric Owen Moss’ first residential design in Los Angeles, the 1991 Constellation 167 home in Brentwood, has hit the market courtesy of Sotheby’s International Realty for a listed price of $10.95 million. The home had previously been listed by Compass and Sotheby’s for $12 million last fall before being put up again for the lower price, held exclusively by the latter.

Photo: Wayne Ford, image courtesy Sotheby's International Realty

The 5,476-square-foot design includes four bedrooms and 5 full baths and sits on just a quarter-acre parcel. It has appeared several times in various television shows (R.I.P. Curb Your Enthusiasm) and is distinctive of Moss’ warped style, which was later repeated in 2022’s A+M House. A “comprehensive” series of upgrades and restorations has been performed since it was commissioned, according to Robb Report.

Photo: Wayne Ford, image courtesy Sotheby's International Realty

Moss, who turns 81 this year, recently completed his (W)RAPPER office tower in Culver Ci...

Flea's Michael Maltzan-designed hillside LA compound drops price from $10M to $7M

2024-04-23T12:41:00-04:00

[...] property in the unincorporated community near Glendale has once again resurfaced for sale, per TMZ, this time asking a speck under $7 million. That’s still a lot more than the $4.3 million Balzary paid contemporary artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell for the place in 2018, but it does include an 875-square-foot addition that was installed on the land in 2021, as well as a pool and cabin that were tacked on in 2020.

As we wrote in 2022, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist listed the property asking $9.8 million, having purchased the property four years previous for $4.3 million. The Michael Maltzan-designed complex contains an outdoor movie pavilion, a redwood cabin, and a smaller two-bedroom house designed by Richard Neutra.

Engel Studios, Cameron Carothers; Associated Press

Artists Lari Pittman and Roy Dowell originally commissioned Maltzan for the single-bedroom addition in 2009, and it has since been featured in several design magazines, in addition to receiving an AIA Award in 2012.

Kanye West relists Tadao Ando-designed Malibu home for $14 million less

2024-04-12T12:04:00-04:00

Kanye 'Ye' West has reportedly reduced the price of his previously listed Tadao Ando-designed home in Malibu, California, to $39 million, according to Realtor.com. The new price is substantially lower than both the original $53 million listing and the $75 million price tag it carried in 2020 before he paid $57.3 million to purchase the home in September of 2021.

The 4,000-square-foot design from 2013 had been previously owned by Richard Sachs. The deprecation might stem from its reported current state, which was affected by a hasty “gut renovation” performed last year and leaving its interior without finishes and (possibly) electricity, light fixtures, or appliances — resulting in a recent lawsuit.

Marmol Radziner served as the executive architect and general contractor for its original construction. Ando is currently working on the design of a vacation home for West's ex-wife Kim Kardashian in the Palm Springs area after seeing his MPavilion10 commission extended by another full y...

Oliver Wainwright on Disney's 'dream or nightmare' Storyliving community

2024-04-09T11:58:00-04:00

With revenue from cinema and streaming falling in recent years, income from Disney’s “experience” division is soaring, and property development is the next logical step. Disney tried it before in Florida, first with utopian plans for Epcot (the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow), followed by the quaint town of Celebration, but Storyliving takes the branded living experience to the next level.

Writing for The Guardian, critic Oliver Wainwright reflects on plans for a major Disney-themed development at Rancho Mirage in the California desert.

As we reported initially in 2022 and in a follow-up last year, the 2,000-home Storyliving by Disney scheme will include a midcentury-influenced member's clubhouse named for the fictional Parr family from the company’s “The Incredibles” franchise, where users can engage with Disney-themed art lessons and experience dinners inspired by Disney stories.

Related on Archinect: Disney unveils further details for planned Cotino community in the Coachella Valley. Image courtesy Disney Parks

In his latest article, Wainwright views the development through the lens of the Architecture of Stage Realities exhibition taking place at Arc en Reve in Bordeaux. The exhibition "paints a portrait of Walt Disney as a natural-born developer, a cartoonist who understood not only how to lure people into his magical worlds but how to keep them coming back," Wai...

Ray Kappe's Keeler House lists for $12 million in Los Angeles

2024-04-05T18:23:00-04:00

Late SCI-Arc founder Ray Kappe’s Keeler House design has hit the market in Pacific Palisades, California, for $12 million.

The split-level, 4,142-square-foot Post and Beam design was built over four and a half years using Kappe’s nearby personal residence as its model. A rich palette of redwood, teak, Douglas fir, concrete, and glass feature carefully throughout the home, which sits on a 7-acre hillside lot and is replete with a two-car garage, four bedrooms, three baths, a storeroom, and separate guest quarters.

Kappe designed the home in 1991 for a local jazz musician. Its interior layout is centered around its open-plan living/entertainment area that is cantilevered to extend over the hillside. A pleasing layered effect composes the interior, with glass inlay floor and ceiling blocks included to further incorporate the presence of natural light deeper into the structure via a vaulted skylight. Six concrete towers work to elevate the home above the tree line, allowing for a floati...

Developer behind SHoP-designed The Brooklyn Tower is facing foreclosure on $240 million loan

2024-04-04T12:20:00-04:00

Michael Stern, the developer of SHoP’s new The Brooklyn Tower (also known by its address at 9 Dekalb Avenue), is facing foreclosure over a failure to pay a $240 million loan that was extended by Silverstein Properties in 2019 to complete the 93-story project, according to reports from The Real Deal.

As TDR pointed out, Stern is also responsible for 111 West 57th Street, which has had issues with cost overruns and other legal setbacks.

Stern, a veteran of the city’s high-stakes recent luxury market, is known for making huge bets on his projects. Speaking for a 2020 Financial Times profile, FXCollaborative’s Daniel Kaplan said of his approach, “He’s commissioned some very good architecture. The thing that’s really interesting about him is that all the things people say you can’t do — or you can’t do for the money — he says, ‘Forget it!’”

The tower, which stands as Brookly...

Frank Lloyd Wright's early Prairie-style design lists for $779,000 in Illinois

2024-03-29T14:41:00-04:00

The home credited as one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Prairie School designs, the 1900 Warren Hickox House, has hit the market recently in Kankakee, Illinois, for a listing price of $779,000.

Realtor.com was early to report news of the home’s listing, which represents the first time the home has been available for purchase in 48 years. Sited adjacent to the R. Harley Bradley House from the same year, the 3,277-square-foot design features four bedrooms and 2.5 baths and is completed by a Japanese-inspired roofline the then 33-year-old Wright was drawn to even before his first visit to the country in 1905.

First floor plan. Image: Freiluft/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Frank Lloyd Wright Trust describes: “Despite the relatively small scale of the residence, Wright created a sense of both interior and exterior expansiveness through his use of a modified cruciform plan and his manipulation of architectural space, form, and details.”

Second floor plan. Image: Freiluft/Wikimedia Co...

Leading Architects Become Harvard Alums with this Executive Development Program

2024-03-21T14:55:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by
Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education

Created for global leaders in the built environment, the Advanced Management Development Program in Real Estate (AMDP) at the Harvard Graduate School of Design leverages the school’s resources to help participants reach the absolute pinnacle of their profession. The intensive one-year program with five weeks spent on campus brings participants into contact with industry leaders from around the world via on-campus sessions, site visits, and project-based learning, culminating in graduates being granted Harvard alumni status.

This article features insights from three program alumni, Trusted Inc. Founder and CEO Michael Peters, Class of 2015, Unico Developers Principal and Co-founder Fernando Levy Hara, Class of 2010, and Raouf Advisory Founder and Chief Advisor Hussam Raouf, Class of 2017, to get an inside look at this unique educational and professional growth opportunity.

“The Most Exclusive Real E...

Plans revealed for Hudson Yards Phase Two with several towers and a potential casino

2024-02-26T12:03:00-05:00

The next chapter in New York’s Hudson Yards has been revealed, with developers filing a bid for a potential mixed-use casino complex. Related Companies and Wynn Resorts submitted plans as part of an environmental impact process last week with the New York City Department of City Planning, which includes two scenarios for the plot directly west of The Vessel.

The proposed site is currently occupied by the West Side Yard and would see the Hudson Yards development expand west, separated from the Hudson River only by 12th Avenue. The plot would also be wrapped on three sides by the High Line, which already borders the south side of the existing Hudson Yards development.

In 2020, Related Companies offered an indicative insight into the architectural intent for the site when it published renderings to assuage concerns that a 700-foot wall would separate the development from The High Line.

Hudson Yards Phase Two proposed plan. Massing and plan credit: Related/NYC Planning

Both scenarios sub...

Adam Neumann is attempting to buy his way back into WeWork

2024-02-06T20:00:00-05:00

Five years after driving WeWork into the ground, co-founder and ousted CEO Adam Neumann has now hatched a plan to buy it out of bankruptcy. In a letter to WeWork’s advisers obtained by The New York Times, Neumann and his new real estate business, Flow Global, express interest in buying the co-working space solution — but claim WeWork has been ignoring attempts to get more information so they can come up with a bid.

WeWork, meanwhile, is beginning to walk away from even more properties under the direction of new CEO David Tolley after announcing an initial list of 40 that would be relinquished in November.

Neumann had cited outside scrutiny as his main reason for leaving the company in September 2019. His attempts since December to purchase the company through his new housing startup Flow Global constitutes the second such push since Bay Area financier Dan Loeb funded the project in August 2022. The return-to-office downturn is being cited as their principal motivation. In a letter to WeWork advisers, Neumann's attorney said it would be a "value-maximizing transaction for all stakeholders."

WeWork currently owes about $18.6 billion in debts, according to their Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from November.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Tirranna home sells for $6 million in Connecticut

2024-01-30T14:58:00-05:00

A treasured Frank Lloyd Wright home once resided in by the architect himself has sold for a reported $6 million in suburban New Canaan, Connecticut. The house is one of Wright’s largest designs and was purchased for $2 million below the original $8 million asking price that was published with its first listing in June 2023.

Tirranna House was originally built for the local Rayward family in 1955 and features seven bedrooms with eight full bathrooms in a horseshoe plan covering some 7,861 square feet on 14 acres of land. It has had just four owners in the subsequent 70 years, according to Robb Report. Wright lived in the home during the construction of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York after 1956 and incorporated some of the same clerestory windows used in the museum’s design into the home’s greenhouse, which is joined by a guest residence, five-car garage, converted wine cellar, and barn.

Image courtesy Houlihan Lawrence

Featuring a lively palette of Philippine mahogany ...

UCLA buys into Westside Pavilion conversion space formerly reserved for Google campus

2023-12-29T12:15:00-05:00

UCLA has purchased the former Westside Pavilion shopping mall near its campus, reports The Real Deal. The 580,000-square-foot office known as One Westside was formerly been leased to Google for a 14-year term, but was left vacant as the company’s staff reductions began in January of this year ended the deal.

The Gensler project was partially completed in 2022 at a cost of $475 million. The other 240,000-square-foot half of the mall has been redone by a developer called GPI and includes a mixed-use residential component enacted at what used to be the mall’s parking lot. Google had invested in a spate of other office conversions highlighted by the $280 million Thompson Center project in Chicago, earning it praise as one of corporate America’s leading proponents of adaptive reuse strategies.

According to The Real Deal: “UCLA has not said what it wants to do with the three-story indoor mall, wh...