Actor Chris Pratt and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, have come under fire for demolishing a cherished midcentury-modern home to make way for a colossal 15,000-square-foot mansion.
The controversy surrounds their acquisition of the 1950 Zimmerman house, a gem of architectural history designed by renowned architect Craig Ellwood, which stood in LA’s prestigious Brentwood neighborhood.
Purchased for a hefty $12.5 million, the residence was complemented by landscaping by the visionary Garrett Eckbo and had graced the pages of Progressive Architecture magazine.
The single-story abode and its meticulously designed surroundings have now been erased, making room for a mammoth modern farmhouse-style estate — a trend increasingly dominating suburban landscapes across the United States.
Concerns about the demolition were raised early on by the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture. Despite being identified as a potentially historic site by the city’s SurveyLA program, the Zimmerman house lacked the safeguards necessary for its protection, according to the conservancy’s Instagram post.
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Comments flooded the post, with many expressing anger and frustration over the demolition.
“What the f–k? Why would you buy an architecturally/historically significant house to tear it down? Buy another property for f–ks sake,” one commenter wrote.
“Modern farmhouse will never become a classic of design. No matter how many HGTV mavens want to make it so…” another wrote.
