FOR ANYONE lucky enough to have witnessed the move, it was some kind of spectacle: the 1941 Maxwell house by Richard Neutra, one of Southern California's most celebrated residential architects, loaded onto a flatbed truck for a cruise down the Sunset Strip.
The midnight voyage last weekend started in Brentwood, where one-third of the house was slowly wheeled out, followed by a caravan of Neutra devotees, a real estate agent and one very nervous homeowner -- all focused on the survival of a little-known architectural gem.
If all goes according to plan, the remainder of the 1,700-square-foot wooden structure will follow in coming days, taking up residence on what had been a vacant lot in Angelino Heights, the neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles best known for its flamboyant Victorians.
Saving the house has become a labor of love -- some say obsession -- of the owner, developer Barbara Behm, who does business under the name Princess Bovlana. She plans to restore the house "from top to bottom, and everything in between," before selling it.
Built for $6,750, the Maxwell house has been the subject of intense interest among preservationists for years. Previous owners Jeffrey and Karen Brandlin bought the home and its 13,200-square-foot lot in 2002 for $1.6 million, not knowing the structure's significance.
When word spread that the couple planned to raze it and build a 5,300-square-foot contemporary residence in its place, preservationists pressured the couple to spare the Neutra architecture. With a push from the Los Angeles Conservancy, the house was declared a city historic-cultural monument in 2005, keeping the bulldozers at bay.
At one point, the Brandlins offered the house for sale on EBay with a reserve price of $1. At least one party other than Behm reportedly offered to buy and move the home but was unable to find a new location.
Behm bought the house, but not the land, from the Brandlins in 2004. She won't reveal the price other than to say "it was much more than a dollar."
Behm then spent the subsequent years and thousands of dollars -- she won't disclose specifics -- to gain the cooperation of neighbors, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission and even the city's arborist to agree on a plan for relocating the one-story structure. Behm says she waited three months just for permission to trim trees on the Brentwood property so that the moving truck could back up on the lot.
