Field Trip Friday

Hollyhock House, Exterior

Friday is a good day for field trips. The Saturday and Sunday traffic hasn't begun yet and most museums and places of interest in Los Angeles are open. Almost a month ago, Mary Jo, Larry and I visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona. FLW also built many well-known buildings in the Los Angeles area. Mary Jo said she'd never seen Hollyhock House (1921), so we decided to visit today.

Stylized stone hollyhock flower. This was Aline Barnsdall's favorite flower

All photos of Hollyhock House are from the internet. You're not allowed to photograph inside the home. The Barnsdall Parks Association recently finished about half of the restoration of Hollyhock, so we were limited in our visit today. We could only visit the main rooms of the house, the foyer, living room, library and music room. We had views into the kitchen, dining room and a few other rooms. We could not go upstairs to see the bedrooms or walk into the courtyard. Hopefully, all restoration will be done toward the end of the summer. We were shown photos of the rooms we could not visit though.

The Living Room with reproductions of Wright's built-in furniture

The Dining Room

The Library

The hollyhock flower design is everywhere on the property. It was Aline Barnsdall's favorite flower. There are even real hollyhocks growing the garden!

You can read more about the history of this house HERE. 

After taking a look around the Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall, we decided to have lunch at Spitz Grill a few blocks away.

We shared an order of Doquitos, which was kind of like a Mediterranean taquito. It was thin Lavash bread, rolled with chicken, feta, onion, aioli, fried. The Doquitos were served on top of a Greek-type salad. It was a perfect lunch!

Doquitos at Spitz

It's always fun going on field trips with Mary Jo!