Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger demolished a famed midcentury residence designed by late architect Craig Ellwood to make room for a brand new, fashionable mansion.
That’s not how Erin Ellwood, Craig Ellwood’s daughter, stated she would have gone about it.
“I believe it will have been actually cool to maintain it and do one thing … add to it in a extremely attention-grabbing, revolutionary means,” Ellwood instructed The Occasions on Monday. “However you recognize, possibly this simply isn’t their fashion. I imply, it clearly isn’t in the event that they’re constructing a farmhouse.”
Ellwood, an Ojai-based inside designer, spoke to The Occasions about her father’s late ‘40s Brentwood fee, identified amongst locals because the Zimmerman Home after unique house owners Martin and Eva Zimmerman. The property, which she described as a “time capsule” due to its Midcentury Fashionable aesthetic, was bought final 12 months and set for demolition seemingly with out purpose. In current weeks, a number of reviews revealed that the Marvel star and Schwarzenegger bought the lot for $12.5 million and that their new mansion — to be designed by Ken Ungar — was the explanation for the teardown.
On X (previously Twitter), the superstar couple shortly confronted ire from structure fans and different critics. “Wow,” wrote one person who shared an Architectural Digest article. “Wow as in, that is actually dangerous.”
“Chris Pratt purchased a BEAUTIFUL Fifties mid century fashionable home designed by THE Craig Ellwood and demolished it to construct a s— McMansion,” one X person wrote on Friday. “My mid century modernist coronary heart is shattered.”
“Think about tearing this historic home all the way down to construct a ‘fashionable farmhouse’ McMansion,” a second user wrote on Saturday.
As extra reviews in regards to the Ellwood razing surfaced, handfuls of social media customers additionally revived “Worst Chris,” a dig that stemmed from a viral tweet in regards to the Hollywood Chrises (Chris Hemsworth, Pratt, Chris Pine and Chris Evans).
Representatives for Pratt and Schwarzenegger didn’t instantly reply to The Occasions’ request for touch upon Monday.
Like Pratt’s on-line critics, Erin Ellwood stated she solely discovered in regards to the purpose for the demolition earlier this month. However she instructed The Occasions that she understands “it comes with the territory.”
All through his decades-long profession, Craig Ellwood introduced his indoor-outdoor dwelling strategy to a number of properties throughout Southern California, together with his beachfront Hunt Home in Malibu. The Zimmerman home, with its floor-to-ceiling glass home windows and open ground plans, was designed early in her father’s profession and wasn’t the perfect illustration of his work, Ellwood stated.
“It doesn’t break my coronary heart,” she added of the raze.
Nonetheless, the house, bought to “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” creator Sam Rolfe and spouse Hilda Rolfe in 1975— stands for a timeless architectural motion. Erin likens her father’s lasting Midcentury designs to “the Chanel of structure.”
“There’s sure fashions that can by no means go away. They’ll at all times keep sturdy,” she stated.
The couple’s fashionable farmhouse aesthetic is probably not Erin’s most popular fashion, however she stated she understands why Pratt and Schwarzenegger would need the Zimmerman Home plot: proximity to Schwarzenegger’s mom, Maria Shriver. The previous first woman of California reportedly lives throughout the road from the property.
“I don’t really feel bitter. I perceive the love of household, I perceive desirous to be near my mom or my mom in-law,” stated Ellwood, whose late actor mom Gloria Henry additionally lived by Shriver. “I perceive being a multimillionaire and wanting to construct precisely what I need and maintain my household shut. I get all that. Sadly, it concerned tearing one thing down.”
Razing the Zimmerman Home isn’t just “so brutal,” however wasteful in quite a lot of methods, Ellwood added. She lamented that the house didn’t have some type of ceremonious sendoff — ultimate excursions for structure college students, a celebratory cocktail hour, donation of supplies for architectural research — earlier than it was torn down.
“Is there one thing extra artistic that would’ve been executed within the technique of taking it away that would’ve given it some honor?” Ellwood asks.
She was talking to The Occasions on what would have been her father’s 102nd birthday. She says Craig Ellwood “stood for innovation and a brand new means of California dwelling.”
“I believe what individuals are responding to is [the home] is like this time capsule,” she stated. “I believe that’s what hurts individuals a lot — is that there aren’t that many nice ones.”
With the Zimmerman Home now a pile of rubble and Pratt and Schwarzenegger’s new mansion reportedly nonetheless in early development, Ellwood stated she hopes the couple considers giving again to the structure neighborhood amid the backlash.
“They’ve acquired cash,” she stated. “It might behoove them to do one thing variety to the world of structure.”