It seems that L.A.’s thirst for massive modern farmhouses knows no bounds: last week, news broke that Chris Pratt and wife Katherine Schwarzenegger quietly bought then razed the 74-year-old Zimmerman House by Southern California modernist architect Craig Ellwood with plans to build a 15,000-square-foot residence in the increasingly ubiquitous, though contentious style. As first published by Robb Report, the couple reportedly paid $12.5 million in an off-market sale for the midcentury house in Brentwood, which marked one of Ellwood’s earliest projects. They also tore up all of modernist legend Garrett Eckbo’s original landscaping, effectively turning the nearly one-acre lot into one flat slab.

Though Pratt already has a few detractors online, with a portion of the internet dubbing him “the worst Chris,” news of the demolition has soured people even further—but it’s not just preservation activists sharing their anger on social media. X user @PastaVersaucy wrote, “Special place in hell for people who do this, go buy a readily made McMansion instead you dumb b****!!!,” subsequently posting: “Tearing this down, for what?? Floor to ceiling black and white marble with no soul?” In a retweet of the above, X user @caitiedelaney added, “Maybe I’m different but I would have a hard time sleeping soundly if I spent $12.5 million on this house only to tear it down.” Members of the Midcentury Modern subreddit agreed, posting comments like, “Yet more proof that money can’t buy good taste,” and “I know its[sic] just material but sincerely, burn in the deepest pits of hell bro,” in response to a TikTok from Quinn Garvey (@vintageonq) that starts, “Chris Pratt, you’re a weirdo for this one,” and currently has 38,800 likes.

In Garvey’s video, which she took inside the Zimmerman House during the 2022 estate sale, you can see the home’s original fixtures and structures, many of which were featured in Julius Shulman’s 1953 photos of the property—and still seemed to be in good if not great shape. (Some were even sold on 1stDibs late last year, prior to demolition.) Garvey says that when she heard the news, she was surprised, even though this isn’t her “first rodeo” in terms of estate sales in subsequently demolished homes. “I remember going through it, and it was such a pleasant experience,” she says. “I thought it was in great condition. I’ve been to estate sales in houses that were a little dilapidated or you can see the water damages or the hinges of the cabinets are falling off, but that house had such a different feel to it. I never thought it was gonna go. It’s just like, Really? You had to do that?”

Of course, the preservationists are also quite upset—and vocal. Nonprofit Save Iconic Architecture called the demolition “devastating” in an Instagram post, with at least one commenter likening the couple’s choice to “buying a Rothko for the frame.” The architectural preservation advocacy group’s cofounder, interior designer Jaime Rummerfield, says she more than understands the internet’s collective disgust, likening it to “an endangered animal that just got poached again” and saying that it’s “neglectful” for architect Ken Ungar, who’s been commissioned to build the couple’s new modern farmhouse-style mansion, to not even attempt to incorporate the existing structure into their vision. “Shame on them for not wanting to keep something so special,” she adds.

Part of the reason people are angry is because, realistically, the couple didn’t actually have to demolish the residence. They reportedly purchased the house because Schwarzenegger’s mother, Maria Shriver, lives right across the street, raising the question of whether there were other properties on the block they could have pursued. Some, like L.A. architect John Dutton—who actually grew up in one of the adjacent homes Shriver razed to build her compound—have also questioned whether Pratt and Schwarzenegger could have added to the existing footprint, saying that, while amending the Ellwood-designed property would have taken longer and cost more, the result would have been a home that was more special, rather than “a weird, emblematic three-dimensional advertisement of status.”

And while the home’s 2,770 square feet is modest by today’s big money real estate standards, realtors like Take Sunset’s Rob Kallick agree that, had the house hit the open market, it would have generated a lot of interest, even at that steep price point. “Craig Ellwood homes elicit a very strong emotional response from buyers,” he says. While he admits that there is a limited pool of buyers for a $12.5 million architecturally significant home, “there are many wealthy people who deeply understand how valuable that house could be to preserve and restore, even if it’s kind of small-ish, relatively speaking.” A Richard Neutra house that just went on the market in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood is already in contract, for instance, with Kallick saying showings were “a complete madhouse.”

Many commenters decrying the demolition asked why the house wasn’t protected, saying that it should have been on some sort of historic list. Rummerfield says that the reality of the matter is that the city of L.A. has been incredibly lax about that sort of designation for years, passing the onus onto citizens and architectural fans in the community. There’s no head of preservation in the city government, either, so when appeals or requests for historic designation are submitted to places like the planning committee or the Office of Historic Resources, they can sit for years before even being addressed, during which time the homes or buildings in question may either fall into disrepair or disappear altogether.

“We need a chief of preservation who really connects the dots between things like Survey LA and what’s actually going on at each address,” Rummerfield says. “Even if you’re just talking about the top three percent of notable buildings that should be saved, or saying making blanket designations, like ‘all Paul R. Williams’ or ‘all Craig Ellwood,’ L.A. needs to stop passing the buck on preservation.”

Top photo of the 1950 Zimmerman House by Craig Ellwood; photo by Julius Shulman, courtesy © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles

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