Hollyhock House

Beautiful and vexing. An expensive piece of unfinished business. That's what Frank Lloyd Wright thought of his architectural jewel, Hollyhock House, in 1921 after planting it atop a hill that sits like a 90-foot-high gumdrop stuck to the flat terrain of eastern Hollywood. And beautiful, vexing, expensive and unfinished are what the house and its surrounding park have proved to be again.

Doc X. Nghiem has spent more than a year being enchanted by the beauty and originality of Frank Lloyd Wright's 1921-vintage Hollyhock House. But as the man immediately responsible for fixing some of the historic building's flaws and shoring up its points of vulnerability, he also knows its ability to frustrate.

One of Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural landmarks in Los Angeles--Hollyhock House--was closed Sunday for a three-year, $10-million restoration to repair the ravages of time and reverse the damage caused by the Northridge earthquake. The sprawling Hollywood home built for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall will be restored to its 1921 magnificence as the centerpiece of a $21-million project to upgrade Barnsdall Art Park.

To gather inspiration for his design of Hollyhock House atop what now is Barnsdall Park, Frank Lloyd Wright wandered among the olive groves that once dotted that hill in east Hollywood and tracked the play of the sun and the moon. Eighty years after Wright's masterpiece was completed, the long-planned restoration of the Maya-flavored house and verdant grounds is about to commence with seismic repairs and replanting of hundreds of olive trees in keeping with Wright's original vision.

Everyone knows about Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings, including the famous Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. What many don't know is that Wisconsin's most famous architect also designed furniture. Friends of Hollyhock House will host the first public showing Thursday of a new line of furniture originally designed by Wright who died in 1959. Admission to the 6-to-9 p.m.

After nearly three years and $17 million, Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark, city-owned Hollyhock House and the adjacent Barnsdall Park may still remain closed to the public when the first of two renovation phases is finished late this spring, city officials said Wednesday. And there are currently no plans and no money for the second phase.

One of Los Angeles' architectural treasures is making a comeback. Frank Lloyd Wright's vintage 1921 Hollyhock House at Barnsdall Park in Hollywood will reopen for public tours on Wednesday, on what would have been the architect's 138th birthday. The Mayan-influenced Hollyhock House, built at the beginning of Wright's "California Romanza" period for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall, has been closed for five years.

Los Angeles art collector and benefactor Frederik R. Weisman announced Thursday that he will donate $100,000 to the city for the construction of a sculpture garden to help revive historic Barnsdall Park and its cultural center in Hollywood. The grant by the Frederik R.

Barnsdall Park, at the crest of a hill in Los Feliz, stands on the threshold of a renaissance, its garden blooming again, the olive trees coming back and its future seemingly blessed by a promise from city officials to restore it as the cultural center it was designed to be.