Lovell Beach House

The Lovell Beach House is one of the most important pieces of modernist architecture in the United States. R.M. Schindler designed it in 1925 and 1926 — a strikingly forward-looking concrete-frame structure raised on five large reinforced-concrete piers like an exoskeleton, with the living spaces suspended within the frame.

The house is a private residence and not open to the public, but the exterior — visible from East Oceanfront on the Balboa Peninsula — is well worth a walk past. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1971. The visual impact, even now, is striking: the bare concrete bones in the middle of a row of conventional beach cottages.

things to do sight architecture balboa peninsula
A story
Architect Rudolph Schindler designed the house in 1925 for the eccentric physician Philip Lovell, whose Los Angeles Health House (designed by Schindler's rival Richard Neutra a few years later) became equally famous. The 'beam house' design — concrete frames lifted above the dunes — was a deliberate response to the dampness and sand of the beach setting.

Other places in Balboa Peninsula