One hundred years ago, Philip Lovell commissioned a beach house from architect Rudolph Schindler that kickstarted modern architecture in Southern California. The Lovell Beach House in Newport Beach is now listed for sale for the first time since it was built, with an asking price of $18.8 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Lovell was born Morris Saperstein in New York in 1895. He studied at the world’s first school of Osteopathy, an alternative medicine school in Missouri, before moving to Los Angeles and reinventing himself as Philip Lovell, an eccentric naturopath who eschewed medicine but embraced nudism. Lovell was a raw foods vegetarian who slept outdoors and enjoyed cold showers before it was cool.
His unique way of thinking captured the imagination of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, who asked him to write a health column which became hugely popular. He published books, gave lectures and wrote his “Care of the Body” column for over twenty years.
In 1926 he commissioned Austrian architect Rudolph Schindler, who came to Los Angeles to complete Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Park, to build a two-story house near the water in Newport Harbor. The 2,741-square-foot beachfront residence is directly above a popular boardwalk but features a rooftop deck for sunbathing above a cavernous, double-height main room with floor-to-ceiling glass and a fireplace. Schindler was called back four years after the house was built to enclose outdoor sleeping porches that grew a little too cold for the Lovell’s taste. He kept the communal shower with five showerheads.
Scroll to continue reading
fresh drops…