We're not done talking about the Van Dekker Residence preservation shenanigans yet. Zoe Ohl, who's selling the Rudolph Schindler house as executor of her father's estate, got in touch with Curbed to share her side of things and tell us some stories about the handsome, rundown Van Dekker.
To the matter of A.D. Modlin, the Cal Poly Pomona historic preservation student who submitted the house for Historic-Cultural Monument status, she says he only told her about the nomination after it was submitted, in early September, and that "he didn't take time to find out" that the house was close to a sale. She opposed the nomination because she was afraid it would make the house difficult to sell, and one of the other heirs to her father's estate is accusing her of taking too long to sell the house. Ohl says at the hearing Modlin showed close-ups and attractive shots of the house, but not its decay. (Read Modlin's take here.)
Ohl says the house is in its state because for years only her elderly father and disabled brother lived there. She said they "resented interference," and that her father, novelist and screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides, didn't believe in fixing the house. He used to tell her that Schindler said "A Schindler ought to die with its owner." (She doesn't know if Schindler ever really said that.)
Ohl says she plans to write to the Cultural Heritage Commission to try to get them to stop the HCM nomination, but it's unlikely they will. She also said she's "very committed to the house," and turned down two teardown offers before receiving the latest offer, from a collector who wants to restore the house. She says she's close to a new agreement with that buyer. Bezzerides had an attachment to the house too--Ohl says once, before he owned it and just after his divorce from Ohl's mother, he snuck in through a window and spent the night on the floor.
· Preservation Drama at the Van Dekker Residence [Curbed LA]
· Rumormongering: Schindler Van Dekker Close to Sale [Curbed LA]
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