Sowden house
- Architect
- Lloyd Wright
- Year
- 1926
- Style
- Mission Revival
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
- Collection
- the wrights of los angeles
The Sowden House is a 1926 residence at 5121 Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz, designed by Lloyd Wright, eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright, for his friend John Sowden, a painter and photographer. Built of ornamented concrete textile blocks in a Mayan Revival vocabulary, its facade is famous for reading as either a Mayan temple or a gaping shark's mouth, earning it the nicknames 'Jaws House' and 'Franklin House.' It is individually designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #762 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
the building
The cave-like entrance. Visitors pass through sculpted copper gates and up a narrow, tomb-like staircase before reaching the interior, an entrance sequence built to feel like approaching a Mayan temple.
A hidden central courtyard. The house follows a rectangular plan with every room opening off a narrow corridor into a 22-by-68-foot central courtyard. The courtyard once held a 32-foot pool and fountain and two textile-block water organs, all gone by 1940.
Textile-block construction. The walls are built of ornamented, pre-cast concrete textile blocks, with decorative block-work carried from the Mayan-themed exterior into some of the interior walls as well.
the style
The Sowden House is one of Los Angeles's rare examples of Mayan Revival architecture, its textile-block facade deliberately ambiguous — read by different viewers as either a Mayan temple front or the open mouth of a great white shark, the source of its 'Jaws House' nickname.
More on Mission Revivalthe architect
Lloyd Wright, the eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright, designed the Sowden House in 1926 for his friend John Sowden.
significance
The Sowden House is individually designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #762, designated August 13, 2003, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has also picked up a notorious later reputation, tied by lore to a subsequent owner and the Black Dahlia case.
nearby
- Le Trianon Apartments
- Victor Rossetti Residence
- Hollyhock House
- Residence 'A'
- The Bricker Building
- Hollywood Western Building