The first Schindler the City of Los Angeles ever protected, designed for a shop-window man who insisted on detailing his own interiors, and which the county quietly classifies as a duplex.
The Buck House stands on the south-west corner of 8th Street and Genesee Avenue in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California 90036, addressed 5950 to 5958 West 8th Street and 805 South Genesee Avenue. R.M. Schindler designed it in 1934 for John J. Buck. It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 122, declared 20 March 1974, the first Schindler building the city ever designated. This is a private residence.
On 20 March 1974 the City of Los Angeles declared two modern houses Historic-Cultural Monuments on the same day. Number 123 was Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House, which everybody knows. Number 122 was a stucco corner building in the Miracle Mile that most people walk past, and it was the first R.M. Schindler the city had ever thought to protect, twenty-one years after he died.
Debbie Pisaro works as an architectural real estate agent in Los Angeles, and the Buck House is the one she reaches for when a client wants to understand what actually happens to an architect's work after they are gone. It is also a house with three facts attached to it that almost nothing written about it mentions.
The man who co-designed his own house
John J. Buck, known as Jack, designed stores for a menswear manufacturer called Timely Clothes. He worked mainly in Art Deco and, in the words of the scholars who documented the house in 1975, he appears to have been considerably concerned with detailing. That is a polite way of describing what happened next.
Buck did not come to Schindler with a site and a budget. He came with a concept of his own, which Schindler then redesigned, and he kept his hands on the job all the way through. The kitchen cupboard door handles are his. The lettering at the front entrance is his. The bathroom cupboards are his, and probably the strip lighting too. Buck took considerable pride in the house and described it as a building done in collaboration with Schindler.
Schindler's view of the collaboration was different. Buck's Art Deco touches went in during construction, and Schindler was sufficiently unhappy with the result that he refused to allow the interiors to be published in his lifetime. So the first Schindler house the city ever landmarked is one the architect did not want photographed inside. That is a more interesting fact about authorship than anything in the plan.
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Join the list or call (310) 362-6429It is not a single-family house. It is a duplex
Nearly everything written about the Buck House calls it a house. The Los Angeles County Assessor calls it something else: use code 0200, multi-family residence, design type double or duplex, two units, four bedrooms and three baths across 2,893 square feet on a lot of 7,407. The designated address is a range for a reason. There is a main house and, alongside it, a second-storey apartment with its own entrance off to the side, deliberately easy to overlook.
That is worth sitting with. In 1934, the architect of Kings Road designed a landmark modern residence with a rental unit built into it, on a corner lot, for a client who worked in retail display. It is a small commercial calculation embedded in a canonical piece of architecture, and it says a good deal about what practice actually looked like for Schindler in the Depression.
Structurally the house belongs to the middle of his career. His concrete experiments of the 1920s, the How House among them, had proved financially prohibitive, so through the 1930s he worked in what he called plaster skin: stucco and plaster over a wood frame, cheap materials shaped into smooth dynamic masses for progressive clients with limited money. The Buck House is plaster skin, and it should not be confused with the later Schindler Frame method he described in 1947, which is thinner, has deep overhangs and shows its structure. Different decade, different problem.
The corner is the thing to look at. The house and its apartment spread along a wide flat corner lot at street level, pushed close to the pavement so the garden behind gets the space. Sliding glass walls open the living rooms to it, there is a wall of hanging moveable windows, clerestories carry light in high, and translucent screens divide rather than close the interior. James Steele calls it the most closely prescribed example of a Loosian Raumplan in all of Schindler's work, which is a direct line back to his Vienna training under Adolf Loos: the hierarchy is set by varying roof heights, in section, rather than by the plan.
The first one the city thought to save
Monument No. 122 was declared on 20 March 1974. To be certain it really was the first Schindler, every monument numbered 1 to 121 has to be checked, and none of them is his. Two come close and are worth naming honestly: Hollyhock House is No. 12 and Barnsdall Residence A is No. 33, both Frank Lloyd Wright commissions on which Schindler was the man on the ground, credited by scholars with interior detailing, spatial arrangement, furniture, and with completing the design and supervising construction. They are attributed to Wright. So the first building designated as a Schindler is this one, and he had been dead for twenty-one years when it happened.
The protection has since doubled. The Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone took effect on 1 May 2017 and covers 1,347 properties between Wilshire, San Vicente, La Brea and Orange Grove. The Buck House sits inside all four boundaries. That is a meaningful difference from most of the Schindler map: Studio City and Silver Lake have no overlay zone, so monument status there is the entire regime, and the three Inglewood spec houses have no protection of any kind because that city has no preservation ordinance at all.
On the Mills Act, the assessor's record shows no historical-property restriction on this parcel, so there does not appear to be a contract here. That matters more than it used to. The City of Los Angeles has not accepted a new Mills Act contract since 2020, City Council approved a new annual fee structure for existing contracts on 20 December 2025, effective 23 February 2026, and no date has been announced for reopening applications. So on any designated Los Angeles house the live question is not whether it could qualify but whether a contract is already recorded, because recorded contracts keep running and transfer with title. That is a title-report question, and it is the same discipline behind selling a Mills Act or HCM home and what designation does to value.
A monument inside an overlay zone is governed twice, by two different processes. Before writing an offer on any designated Los Angeles property, read what is recorded against it: the monument declaration, whether the property is a contributor to an overlay, and whether a Mills Act contract exists and transfers.
The archivist, the prefab pioneer and the art gallery
The ownership history of this building is better than the architecture press has noticed. In the mid to late 1970s it was home to Konrad Wachsmann, the German-American architect who pioneered prefabrication and space-frame construction and ran USC's Building Research Institute, and to his wife Judith, a furniture designer. Two generations of European modernist emigre architecture, in one Miracle Mile duplex.
In 1995 it was bought by Gene Lichtenstein and Jocelyn Gibbs, and it was restored in 2005 by the architect and contractor Jeff Fink, the same hand behind restorations at the Kallis-Sharlin Residence and the How House. Then, in 2010, Jocelyn Gibbs was appointed Curator of the Architecture and Design Collection at UC Santa Barbara. That collection holds R.M. Schindler's own archive: his drawings, his photographs, his manuscripts. The person living in Monument No. 122 became the professional custodian of the papers of the man who designed it. That is not a coincidence anyone planned and it appears, as far as I can find, in no single account of the house.
For a few years around 2009 to 2012 the building also ran as Country Club Projects, an artist-run gallery, which is an unusual second act for a landmark and a reminder that these houses are lived in rather than embalmed. And here is the last of the three under-reported facts: both owners who have researched the original colours of Schindler's two famous white buildings, this one and the McAlmon House, have said they believe the original Schindler colours were not white. The whiteness that defines the photographs may be later.
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See pocket listingsMiracle Mile, and why it is not Mid-City
The Buck House is filed in a surprising number of places as Mid-City, and in a few as Silver Lake, which is nowhere near it. It is Miracle Mile, and the boundaries settle it without argument. Carthay begins west of Fairfax; Genesee is east of Fairfax, so it is not Carthay. The Miracle Mile overlay zone runs Wilshire to the north, San Vicente to the south, La Brea to the east and Orange Grove to the west, and the house is inside on all four sides. The city's community plan area is Wilshire.
One small administrative note for anyone pulling records: the city's own monument list still shows this property in Council District 4, which reflects the 2012 redistricting. The 2021 redistricting moved the residential Miracle Mile, and west of Cochran and north of Olympic is now Council District 5. The house is west of Cochran and north of Olympic.
The neighbourhood around it is the one A.W. Ross built along Wilshire between La Brea and Fairfax, the Art Deco and Streamline Moderne corridor that became Museum Row. The Buck House is a block off it, doing something quieter and considerably more radical, and it has been there longer than most of what it faces.
What a house like this asks of its next owner
A designated Schindler inside an overlay zone is a particular proposition. The features that make it valuable are the ones a conventional remodel removes without noticing, and here they are unusually fine-grained: the steel casements, the timber-and-glass sliding interior doors, the cove and flush ceiling lights, the Bakelite doorknobs. A USC conservation study has documented the building down to that level and separated original fabric from later alteration, which is a rare advantage for a buyer and worth reading before anyone touches anything.
Pricing one is its own discipline, because the comp set for a verified Schindler is national rather than local and small enough that a single sale moves the conversation. Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, and the founder of Coastline 840. The argument in full is in how to price an architectural home in Los Angeles, the wider record is on her architectural homes page, and the terms of the work are on the architectural homes specialist page. Owners weighing a sale find her through the best Los Angeles historic and architectural real estate agent page.
Set against the rest of the work, the Buck House is the hinge. Behind it lie the concrete years. Ahead lie the Van Dekker House and the wartime Howenstein Residence, and after them the postwar hillside houses. The whole map is on the architect's page, and the wider company it keeps is on the iconic architectural homes of Los Angeles page.
The Buck House, answered
Where is the Buck House?
On the south-west corner of West 8th Street and South Genesee Avenue in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California 90036. The designated address is a range, 5950 to 5958 West 8th Street and 805 South Genesee Avenue, because the property contains more than one dwelling. It is a private residence and is not open to the public.
Is the Buck House in Mid-City or Silver Lake?
Neither, though it is filed both ways in various places. It is Miracle Mile, inside the city's Wilshire community plan area. Carthay begins west of Fairfax and Genesee Avenue is east of Fairfax, and the Miracle Mile overlay zone runs Wilshire, San Vicente, La Brea and Orange Grove, with the house inside all four.
Is the Buck House a historic landmark?
Yes. It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 122, declared on 20 March 1974. It also sits inside the Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone, which took effect on 1 May 2017 and covers 1,347 properties, so the building is governed twice, by two different processes.
Was the Buck House the first Schindler landmarked in Los Angeles?
Yes. No monument numbered 1 to 121 is a Schindler work. Two are close: Hollyhock House and Barnsdall Residence A are Frank Lloyd Wright commissions on which Schindler did the detailing, spatial arrangement and construction supervision, but both are attributed to Wright. Schindler had been dead twenty-one years when Number 122 was declared.
Is the Buck House one house or two units?
Two. The Los Angeles County Assessor classifies it as a duplex, with two units, four bedrooms and three baths across 2,893 square feet on a lot of 7,407. There is a main house and a second-storey apartment with its own entrance set off to the side. Most published accounts describe it only as a single house.
Who was John J. Buck?
A store designer for the menswear manufacturer Timely Clothes, working mainly in Art Deco. He brought Schindler his own concept for the house, Schindler redesigned it, and Buck personally detailed the kitchen cupboard handles, the front entrance lettering and the bathroom cupboards. He called the result a collaboration.
Why would Schindler not publish the interiors?
Because his client kept designing them. Buck's Art Deco detailing went in during construction, and Schindler was unhappy enough with the result that he refused to let the interiors be published while he was alive. The first Schindler building the city ever landmarked is therefore one the architect did not want photographed inside.
What is Schindler's plaster skin method?
His 1930s approach, after the concrete experiments of the 1920s proved too expensive to repeat. Stucco and plaster over a wood frame, shaped into smooth dynamic masses, built cheaply for clients with progressive taste and limited money. It should not be confused with the later Schindler Frame, which he described in 1947 and which shows its structure.
Has the Buck House been altered?
Substantially intact but not untouched. Buck added Art Deco detail during construction and later owners altered the house and the grounds. It was restored in 2005 by the architect and contractor Jeff Fink, and a USC conservation study has documented the building down to the Bakelite doorknobs, separating original fabric from later work.
Who is a good architectural real estate agent in California?
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, and the founder of Coastline 840. She represents buyers and sellers of architectural, historic and design-forward houses statewide, including Schindler, Neutra and Ain commissions, Historic-Cultural Monuments and Mills Act properties. CA DRE #01369110, with Side, Inc. as responsible broker.
Coastline 840 · 160 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles CA 90026 · CA DRE #01369110
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Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources and the City's Historic-Cultural Monuments record, for Monument No. 122, its declaration date of 20 March 1974, the designated address range, and for the enumeration of monuments 1 to 121 establishing it as the first Schindler. Los Angeles County Assessor, for the duplex classification, the unit count, the floor area and the lot. Los Angeles City Planning, for the Miracle Mile Historic Preservation Overlay Zone and the Wilshire community plan area. MAK Center for Art and Architecture, on the plaster skin method following the concrete years. Panos Koulermos and Stefanos Polyzoides, 1975, for Jack Buck's occupation and his detailing of the house. USC Heritage Conservation, for the account of the collaboration, Schindler's refusal to publish the interiors, and the materials survey. James Steele, for the Loosian Raumplan reading. USModernist, for the ownership chain and the 2005 restoration. UC Santa Barbara, for Jocelyn Gibbs's appointment as Curator of the Architecture and Design Collection, which holds the Schindler archive. Completion year is given variously as 1934 and 1935 across sources and the assessor carries 1935. This is a private residence.
Debbie Pisaro, CA DRE #01369110, is the founder of Coastline 840, a California real estate brand, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader with 24 years of experience in architectural, historic and design-forward homes across California. Side, Inc., CA DRE #02014153, responsible broker. She writes about California real estate at debbiepisaro.com, losfelizliving.com and coastline840.com.
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