The Millard house is one of five concrete block homes
constructed by Wright in Southern California — others include
the Hollyhock House, the Freeman House (under the care of USC),
the John Storer House (owned by Hollywood big-wig Joel Silver),
and the Ennis House (which you may recognize from Ridley Scott’s
Blade Runner). The home represents Wright’s first foray into
modular building, and his efforts to break away from the
“prairie house” architectural style that had become synonymous
with his name. He turned to concrete as his new building
material in 1906 when Alice Millard commissioned him to
construct her second home on a lush green site located in
Pasadena. Wright challenged himself to only create something
beautiful from what he called “the cheapest (and ugliest) thing
in the building world”, and to develop a new low-cost flexible
building system with the same material. Given the unique
location and formation of the site, Wright wanted to design a
structure that would meld with the land. The home clings