Chris Pratt’s resolution to demo a historic residence he purchased for $12.5 million final 12 months has ignited public outrage: He has ‘more money than taste’

The move to demolish got here shortly after Pratt bought the mid-century residence in an off-market sale for $12.5 million in January 2023. The home is situated within the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, throughout the road from Pratt’s mother-in-law, former first girl of California Maria Shriver. The historic home can be changed by a modern farmhouse designed by architect Ken Ungar, Architectural Digest reported, and is now within the early levels of development. Till its completion, Pratt is ready it out together with his spouse, Katherine Schwarzenegger, in a $32 million estate in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

A part of the outrage is as a result of the home seemed to be in nice situation previous to its demolition. In a video posted on TikTok, style historian Quinn Garvey captured the house throughout an property sale two years in the past, revealing a sturdy-looking inside of light-filled rooms and no noticeable injury to flooring or partitions. “Chris Pratt, you’re a weirdo for this one,” she mentioned firstly of the video, including, “The family is really doubling down on this block.”

Pratt’s new house is adjoining to Shriver’s two homes, every valued at over over $10 million, carving out a household compound of types within the neighborhood. The demolition displays the rising pattern of recent, multimillion-dollar farmhouses cropping up in America’s suburbs that has gone on for many years and was newly revived after TV persona couple Joanna and Chip Gaines launched their debut present Fixer Higher, through which they transformed outdated farmhouses, based on a Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors report. Ungar has designed several multimillion-dollar mansions, together with trendy farmhouses, in Los Angeles.

Pulling down the well-preserved residence has sparked a lot of the outrage Pratt now faces even exterior housing communities. On X, a consumer made a post decrying the transfer, writing, “Tearing this down for what?? Floor to ceiling black and white marble with no soul?” One other X consumer criticized the price of the demolition, writing, “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.” On a Los Angeles Reddit web page, one other critic wrote, “It’s a shame they didn’t buy something less architecturally significant to destroy. Our architectural treasures are being destroyed by people with more money than taste.” 

Pratt didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark. 

Dropping architectural marvels is ‘a gut punch’ 

Ellwood’s design for the single-family home was commissioned by couple Martin and Eva Zimmerman in 1949 and was featured in <em>Progressive</em> Structure journal shortly after, based on the Eichler Network, which covers mid-century California properties. In 2004, the home modified palms to its final house owners, couple Sam and Hilda Newman-Rolfe. 

The 0.83-acre residence as soon as featured an elaborate backyard landscaped by Garrett Eckbo, and inside, provided 5 bedrooms and three loos in a 2,770-square-foot single-story house, based on the Robb Report.  

Ellwood, born as Jon Nelson Burke in Texas in 1922, was an informally skilled however influential Los Angeles–primarily based architect whose profession spanned the early Nineteen Fifties by way of the mid-Seventies, based on a biography by Architectuul. He gained fame by way of his eye-catching designs and quirky persona, bolstered by his ambitions in appearing, modeling, and self-promotion. He designed several homes in Los Angeles, and the destruction of one of many few that remain is a part of the appreciable backlash.

The Eichler Community lamented the actor’s resolution to raze, citing the home as one of many small variety of remaining iconic properties designed by Ellwood and the rise of modern farmhouses being constructed everywhere in the metropolis. “The sight of a long mailbox and the smell of demolition hanging in the air was what we encountered face to face on a drive of Craig Ellwood–designed homes in the Brentwood area,” Adriene Biondo wrote. “Witnessing the demolition of revered residential architecture is a gut punch.”