Case Study House

Los Angeles
2021

Relocation and restoration of Craig Ellwood’s Case Study House 18.

The house, originally built in 1956 on Miradero Road in Beverly Hills, was sold in 2020. The new owner, not interested in the preservation of the historical home, made plans of demolishing it.

Office LOG called the new owner and convinced them to let us explore the existing site. A few minutes into our site visit with a hammer, we uncovered under a 1986 layer of Hollywood Regency applique, the original structural skeleton and preserved materials of Craig Ellwood’s Field’s House. It was then that the studio began the slow and methodical process of salvaging the remaining structural and architectural elements.

The house was one of the first prefabricated steel homes in Southern California and a deep dive into Ellwood’s archives in Pomona revealed the original welding points used in 1957. The salvage team was instructed to disassemble the pieces following those lines so as to preserve the elements in the same way that they had originally arrived on site.

Our new client has purchased a site in Laurel Canyon where we are currently underway to permit the relocation and reconstruction of the house with a new underground extension that will host a semi public space to host architectural tours and exhibitions.