“I would rather have built this little house than St. Peter’s in Rome,” Frank Lloyd Wright once said in reference to the 1923 Millard House in Pasadena, California. This little house is now up for sale for the not-so-little price of $4,495,000 according to The Wall Street Journal, and though we can’t say we’re surprised that Wright finds superior value in his own 4,230-square-foot creation than the pinnacle of Renaissance and Baroque design, we do admire the architect’s experimentation with textile concrete blocks, a material that Wright believed would help unify architecture and its natural environment.
The Millard House, lovingly referred to by its author as La Miniatura, recently underwent a multi-year restoration, according to realtors Crosby Doe Associates’s website. We’re going to guess you’re not sitting on $4.5 million, but Wright’s fling with brut concrete — for residential projects no less — doesn’t get as much play as his more conventional brick-and-mortar portfolio, so we revel in the opportunity to dissect these pioneering landmarks of modular construction. See more photos on the Millard House website.
And while you’re fantasy house-shopping, don’t forget this other modular concrete residence by Wright in Cincinnati, also for sale.
Photo via The Millard House.
- Kelly Chan
