Millard House (Pasadena, California)

About

The Millard House, commonly known as La Miniatura, is a house at 645 Prospect Crescent in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles, California, United States. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it was completed in 1924 for the rare-book dealer Alice Millard. The house was the first of four concrete textile block houses that Wright designed in Greater Los Angeles in the 1920s, the others being the Samuel Freeman House, the Storer House, and the Ennis House. It was Wright's second design for Millard's family, after the George Madison Millard House in Illinois. La Miniatura is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a contributing property to the Prospect Historic District.

The Millard House is a three-story structure with a detached garage, which sits on an arroyo with a ravine at the bottom. It has two entrances: a pedestrian entrance on the first story, facing Rosemont Avenue to the west, and a vehicular entrance on the second story, facing Prospect Crescent to the east. The water table of the facade is made of stucco, while the rest of the house is clad in concrete textile blocks, which are engraved with cross-shaped motifs. Inside, the house has 4,230 square feet (393 m2) of space, with a floor plan shaped like two overlapping squares. There is a dining room on the first floor, a living room on the second floor, and bedrooms on all three floors. Wood, plaster, and concrete are used as decorations throughout the house, and there are balconies in the living room and the topmost bedroom.