After a landmarked home in San Francisco's Twin Peaks neighborhood was illegally razed last year, the city has ordered the property owner to rebuild an exact replica.
One of only five remaining homes in the city designed by the famed modernist architect Richard Neutra, the Largent House was bought last year for $1.7 million by Ross Johnston through his 49 Hopkins LLC. Johnston had received permission from the city to remodel, but decided to tear down the house instead and retroactively apply for a demolition permit.
The City Planning Commission's unprecedented vote on Thursday to order a replica was unanimous. They have also asked the owner to include a sidewalk plaque telling the saga of the tear down and required rebuild as a cautionary tale for others.
The homeowner had wanted to replace the 1,300 square foot home built in 1935 with a much larger house that would've been nearly 4,000 square feet—highlighting the growing trend of replacing (relatively) affordable homes in the area with much larger and more expensive houses.
A number of these tear downs have involved historic homes, such as Neutra's, prompting San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin to introduce new legislation aimed at preventing mansionization and increasing fines for illegal tear downs.
For more, visit San Francisco Chronicle.
16 Comments
Good luck enforcing that. I love the idea though. Fucking rich pricks just do whatever they want without consequences.
I applaud the decision and message they are trying to send.
Agreed.
This is wonderfully symbolic and wholly unenforceable.
If they manage to win all the appeals and force the owner to re-build it, it'll cost a mint and be really interesting once it meets all current seismic, energy, and enclosure standards while replicating the design.
Would be a lovely thing to work on...
Interesting brief to rebuild a Modernist masterpiece according to today's standards and regulations.
Now that's an interesting m.arch thesis idea.
Cue the barrage of first-time posters asking about how they should be doing this for an m.arch thesis
Bench, the problem here is... how many M.arch grads know what current standards and regulations are anyways?
As a Californian, I am a big admirer of Neutra's work, but I would hesitate to call this house a masterpiece.
But it has a pool!
It has a White Castle aesthetic.
Celebrity culture: anything touched by a master is divine.
My posts are divine (MSc).
Excellent.
While we're at it, rebuild Penn Station as well.
^ Boom!
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