Mauer House / John Lautner

This weekend I went to the estate sale at the Dr. Edgar and Allison Mauer House by John Lautner (1947). It's located on Mount Washington in Los Angeles.

It's in a state of disrepair after decades of deferred maintenance and a severe hoarding situation. What must have been at least15 years ago, Scott from Ten10 took me on a tour of Mount Washington. This was one of the stops. It looked horrible then. David, the grandson of the Mauer's inherited the house. Along with his partner, they are at the beginning stages of restoring the house, with plans to live there.

Edgar F. Mauer House (1939) by Frank Lloyd Wright

Pre-WWII, the Mauer's were working with Frank Lloyd Wright on a house for the site. The plan was for a small one bedroom home that would have been by many accounts, the first Usonian. The war got in the way and it went unbuilt. Post-war, they had children and needed a larger house and it was too expensive for the couple to have Wright design a new home.

Source: Visions of Wright

Wright allowed his prized fellow Lautner to redesign the project as his own.

In The Architecture of John Lautner by Alan Hess, he shared this quote, which give some insight to how Lautner was approaching the design. “Would you mind living in a warehouse if it gave you the space you wanted?” Lautner asked Dr. Edgar and Allison Mauer. “Not if you design the warehouse,” they answered.

Lautner used repeating prefabricated wood bents, engineered by Edgardo Contini, as the main roof support structure. Both conceptually and visually they are similar to supports used by Jean Prouvé for some of his demountable buildings. The difference being, that instead of metal, Lautner used thin wood sheets over a wood frame, like airplane wings were made.

With a shoestring budget, Allison Mauer served as the general contractor and they did much of the work on their own. They finished it in 6 months at a cost of $10,000.

Source: Fritz Block, USC

David, the grandson, said the chairs are at his shop being restored. They were designed by Lautner. His grandparents and Lautner became lifelong friends. John even planted a pine tree after Edgar passed away. It's still there.

What it looked like in 1980

Source: Julius Shulman J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

This is what it looked like fairly recently. David's Aunt lived in the house for 30 years and had a major hoarding problem. David and Elizabeth have been doing god's work of removing all the garbage. She has been documenting it on Instagram.

Source: Elizabeth Godly

It was so good to see the house without a chain link fence blocking the view. Although I do miss all the broken down Volvo's in the driveway.

David showed me one of the family photos of the kitchen. His grandmother was really into having a commercial grade kitchen.

The original oven will be restored.

Is that Orefors?

Indeed, but I didn't buy them.

So what did I buy?

This is it. I'm not sure of the function. I'm thinking a paper holder. It's branded Tentone, which was a tranquillizer in the late 1950s. I assume it sat on Dr. Mauer's desk.

This ad appeared in the journal Postgraduate Medicine on August 1, 1959. It says that Tentone relieves mild to moderate emotional and psychosomatic disorders associated with a range of medical issues.

Source: AIHP