I was just thinking about the two other threads I’ve posted about houses being torn down — one a significant old house in Dallas in perfect condition, razed to build a modern home, and a historically significant house in San Francisco, with stunning interior stained woodwork throughout, all painted stark white with gray.

In the first, a vitriolic poster I didn’t know came on and berated me in several paragraphs, with her point being that old houses in Dallas should be torn down. Her kneejerk insinuations about me/others who were sad a beautiful old home was razed were wrong and outrageous.

The latter, I made the mistake of tagging the design board … a poster came on and asked me if blonde was my real hair color because my thread (and I) was so stupid, it was none of my business what homeowners do, etc. Other insults followed, I can’t remember them.

Anyway, hopefully this thread about a house on a house site won’t spark that level of self-righteous indignation and personal insults, but who knows anymore. 😅

That’s most unfortunate. The house is not large. it appears, and the ceilings look 8’ which is fine by me but probably not what Californians (or most on Houzz) want.

Some redditor quoted in the article suggested adding on, but I imagine adding on would 1) destroy the landscaping anyway and 2) just not work.

Gee, I’d have bought it! Well, maybe not for $12million, but definitely for the seller’s purchase price of $1/4 million! It is lovely, I’m glad they included the video.

So very sad.

What a shame. If it had been listed there's a good chance someone who appreciated it would have bought it --- without tearing it down.

Thanks, Elunia.

What you described is exactly what’s been happening in my town, too.

Another thing is flippers erasing all original details and turning every house, no matter the architectural style, into a ’modern farmhouse’.

I have nothing against those, but every house is looking the same now.

This week, though, I saw two flipped houses for sale, and they (flippers) actually kept many original features and worked around them. Maybe there’s hope! :)

It won't be replaced with anything more architecturally significant, just bigger.

I am so sick of all the white houses with black trim-like farmhouse, but even others that fall into the white with black catagory now. It actually stops me from going into a certain addition (we've been looking at lots/acreages/additions) because I think they will become outdated pretty quick. Maybe I'm just getting old LOL

Yuck ☹️

Some people's taste is only in their mouth...

Ollie, I’m with you. Every time I walk through my neighborhoods, another house has been painted white, or grey or blue. Wood, or brick, and even stone! It’s starting to look very bland and cold. I was especially surprised when the pretty brick home kitty-corner was painted grey…and the house next door to it was already grey!

I never thought I could fault Chris Pratt for anything, until now.

I don't mind too much when an existing home, that's perhaps a bit tired on the outside, is painted white or gray. There's only so much a homeowner can do to refresh an existing house exterior. What really bothers me are all the new-build farmhouses. Like, really? You're starting from scratch and can build any style, but you choose this?

And now...painting new brick homes black! Also, black bricked homes. WTHeck! In Oklahoma hot summers?? I think they look cheap. Only the rare one I see that looks decent.

Location location location. In the end that's what has value. Someone REALLY wanted to live in that neighborhood!!

Painting a house is one thing, but when all of them are painted in the same three colors, it starts to look like tract homes.

Location matters, yes. Having grown up next door to grandma and across the field from cousins, and prior to that across the street from cousins, I know the attraction of being close to family, and on a great street.

It’s just that that was such a nice house. But nice for someone else, designed for someone else. I wish someone else could have lived in it.

I’m sure this is not related at all, but you know Frank Lloyd Wright houses are pretty amazing, and amazingly difficult to live in, and amazingly difficult to get permission to replace. They are big, immovable, art.

Tract home owner here. My house has been gray with white trim since it was built in 1991. Last time I had it painted I went a darker gray. I have an orange screen door. Does that help? Next time it gets painted it will be sage green. The houses on my street resemble one another (tract house subdivision). What colors would be acceptable to help mitigate the tract house look?

Bunny, I’m in a tract house, too, early 2000s build. I like the brick colors of mine (variations of reds with some dark charcoal), but want to update the trim color. It’s a big decision, especially whether to go dark or light. Our windows are black trimmed, so pretty much anything would work.

I’ve seen your house and glorious orange door, I think it all looks wonderful. I like the idea of sage green, too.

Jilly, thanks. In this crazy real estate market, I consider myself very fortunate to own a home, tract house notwithstanding. BM Cheyenne Green is the color I love. I have several other projects more pressing than repainting my house right now.

When done right, I really like the farmhouse look. I prefer it to MCM any day.

Looking at the Pratt/Schwarzenegger architect's portfolio, some of his work is pretty banal for what it must cost. It's just big.

Craig Ellwood has not had much luck with his houses.

One of his houses, a house in the Case Study Program of the 1950s and 1960s was heavily remodeled when it was only 6 years old (1956 and 1962). It was remodeled by Hollywood Regency architect John Elgin Woolf.

I am not sure, but the underlying form was not much changed.

I didn’t intend to denigrate white or grey houses or tract houses! I live in a neighborhood with a lot of developer houses and independent builds. I’m sure when it was built, the preponderance of the ”brick on the bottom and white siding on top” looked alike, and over the years other colors appeared. But now it seems they are reverting to all the same, again. and the independent-builds are being painted the same colors, too, adding to the monotone. Not that I want the crayon box look, but still.

I live in the midwest. The two farmhouses nearest to us, within a mile, one of which is now an AirBnB, are white. Five farmhouses out of sight in one direction but within 3- 5 miles of us, two of which are still farms, two privately owned, and another AirBnB, are white. We built our house on the land in 2005 and those houses were white then. We painted our house red at first but enlarged the porch and painted it white a few years ago.

Thinking about it, though, the houses don't really resemble each other in that relentless way that I think makes the identical color schemes of the so-called Modern Farmhouse even more grating. And I don't think any of the gazillion white houses I see on working farms or farm acreage have black windows or 5 gables marching across the front facade.

I heard about this, but I guess I really don't know the names of famous architects. So I wasn't really clear on how disappointing this is. I do understand why someone might be inclined to raze a house in favor of building just what they want on a lot in a preferred area. But it is sad if it was architecturally significant and to be replaced by a boring generic house following the current fad.

I find it sad that several of the homes in my neighborhood have been spray painted white (including over stone, brick, etc) and painted with black trim. I think that look can be nice if planned, but when done poorly the homes look so bad.

It seems to be making news, and the couple are getting roasted over their decision by a lot of folks = lots of negative takes on them in this article:

https://www.glamour.com/story/chris-pratt-katherine-schwarzenegger-trouble-internet-demolishing-famous-la-house

And Jilly, that type of flaming has been strictly forbidden on these boards. I'm wondering if there were any consequences - is that person still around?

Carol, yes, she’s still around.

I am thinking about both sides of this, because there is some discussion surrounding turning my neighborhood into a historic district. There are already many historic designations within the neighborhood, but no blanket designation of the neighborhood.

As with most things, this could be good, and it could be bad. On the one hand it could stop people from doing overbuilds or hideous modifications of their houses, or from tearing something down. On the other hand there could be a great deal of trouble if you want to replace windows.

So often in this city this seems to play out that a lowly homeowner can be requested to remove and replace a brand new but non-complying basement window, but if you are a developer with enough influence, you can be granted permission to tear down an entire row of 18th c. buildings by claiming it would be a hardship to redevelop them in a historically sensitive way.

This is the outcome when you have the filthy rich who can have it all. Why would they care about anything beyond their own wants?

When I look at the homes that were built in the early 1900s in my home town it is so obvious what an economy where you had great income disparity looks like.

Here is the house owned by the founder of the steel mill

13,588 sqft

Then we have what became known as Mansion Row - The upper management housing.

Each home between 3500 sf - 5000 sf.

And then we have hundreds of the homes built for the workers 1000-1200 sf boxes. There are basically 2 floorplans. You walk in the front door - stairs are ahead of you. To the left is a living room, that either leads directly to the kitchen or may have a small dining room between the living room and kitchen. Go up the stairs and at the top of the stairs is the bathroom, beside the stairs there are either one or two smaller bedrooms and at the front of the house over the living room is the master bedroom.

And we used to have hundreds of even smaller - 720 SF 2 br 1 ba boxes. Most of those have been torn down and replaced with apartment buildings or small business complexes.

My mom lived in the one that is now boarded up when she first got married in 1938.

After the WWs the town grew around the existing town, the middle class thrived and lovely developments were built with homes with yards centered around elementary schools. Two shopping centers were built. There were still some rich, and some poor, but most lived in typical typical middle class neighborhoods instead of the masses living in the boxed row homes.

Sadly, our economy looks much more like the economy of the 20s than the 60s.