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I often think of Cecilia Giménez, the Spanish octogenarian whose loving (albeit “abstract”) restoration of a 1930s fresco delighted the world. And then I think to other treasures that were marred by an attempt to improve, like LA’s own Hart Residence.
Almost lost to decades of remodels and dereliction, this home embodies a distinctly American idealism; where else but post-war Los Angeles could four freshly-discharged vets pool their resources to develop California’s sole successful housing cooperative — and do so with such panache? The Hart Residence, designed by A. Quincy Jones & Whitney R. Smith in 1950 and recently restored by HabHouse, boasts early use of some of the Mid-century’s most distinct architectural features like the fantastically sloped carport, the geometrically exposed concrete, warm redwood siding, and sky-flooded soaring windows.
I didn’t finish Cecilia’s story: her good-faith improvement (initially investigated as vandalism) funded the fresco’s professional restoration, exponentially increased tourism, and has made Ecce Homo — a once-fading fresco in a little town church — one of the most treasured in the world. How many frescos await us in Los Angeles? I know there’s one in Crestwood Hills.
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