LA Architecture Tours, Sightseeing & Tourism

Construction on the John Storer House began as La Miniatura was coming to completion in 1923. The John Storer House was designed after La Miniatura, and reflects a more refined version of Wright's concrete textile block construction, this time with reinforced steel beams strung through the interior of the hollow blocks. The construction method for the Storer House adhered to that of Wright's Little Dipper project for Aline Barnsdall. The Little Dipper was to be a community playhouse on Olive Hill (now Barnsdall Park), where Hollyhock House is located. Wright refined the concrete block construction seen first in La Miniatura, but now with rods of steel inserted vertically and horizontally. It was this added feature that brought Wright to call this "textile block construction". Wright says in his An Autobiography: "Concrete is a plastic material -susceptible to the impress of imagination. I saw a kind of weaving coming out of it. Why not weave a kind of building?" Construction of Little Dipper began on Olive Hill, but it was never finished because of disagreements between Miss Barnsdall and the City of Los Angeles. Wright carried on the use of the inserted steel rods in the Storer House, and shortly after, in the Freeman House and Ennis House, both of Los Angeles.

The John Storer House is firmly connected to its site, nuzzled into the side of one of the Hollywood hills. As with all of Wright's architecture, the house was built according to the site. It appears to be rising out of the earth, and blends in harmony with its landscaping. A certain verticality is seen in the columns of concrete blocks, separated by glass to allow light into the home's interior. This is somewhat at odds with the strictly horizontal nature of Wright's earlier Prairie Houses, but appropriate for Southern California's landscape.  

The John Storer House is seen on the LA Frank Lloyd Wright Tour.