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Photos: Ray Bradbury's House Is Being Torn Down By A Famous Architect
Six months ago Ray Bradbury's Cheviot Hills home sold for almost $1.8 million, although unfortunately it seems the new owner is uninterested in the significance of the 87-year old home.The new owner, it turns out, is famed architect Thom Mayne. A member of UCLA's faculty and head of the firm Morphosis, Mayne's most notable work to Angelenos would probably be the Caltrans building downtown and Emerson College's building on Sunset Boulevard. Curbed learned that Mayne received a permit last month to demolish the house, and he has already gone through with that process.
John King Tarpinian learned from a family friend of Bradbury's that the Fahrenheit 451 author's house was being demolished and was tasked by many to take photos of what remained of the yellow house on the 10200 block of Cheviot Drive. Not much is left of the building, and sadly the same can be said of Bradbury's over half a century time at in the neighborhood. Tarpinian writes on the scifi fan site File 770:
As I was taking pictures locals were walking their dogs. They’d stop to observe and we’d converse. One lady had no idea who had owned the house; she was new to the neighborhood. She walked away in tears. Another long time neighbor knew it was Ray’s home and we mutually agreed things like this are just wrong but money wins out. Another young couple had no idea who Ray was…the saddest encounter of all.
But hey, every end is a new beginning right? Tarpinian writes:
I met the contractor and learned that the house was not bought on spec with a profit-motive: the new owner is going to build a home for his family. If I understood the contractor correctly the house will go below ground three levels (with the bottom level being a pool, which is perfect for our chilly L.A. winters.) and it will go above ground two stories.
Though it's too late to scrounge up the $1.8 million it would've taken to save Bradbury's house, fans can chip in to Indiana University's Center For Ray Bradbury Studies' effort to recreate his home office as it appeared in the Sixties.
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