Fact Check: Did Chris Pratt Bulldoze a Historic Site for a 15,000-Square-Foot Mega-Mansion Diane Keaton Sought to Save?

Here is the short version: Chris Pratt bought a mid-century modern gem in Brentwood, knocked it down, and is putting up a massive new-build. Fans are mad. Preservation folks are livid. And the conversation hit a nerve because Diane Keaton — who spent decades trying to save exactly this kind of house — just passed away.

The house Pratt tore down

In January 2023, Pratt and his wife, Katherine Schwarzenegger, quietly paid $12.5 million for the Zimmerman House, a 1950 modernist by Craig Ellwood. It sat on nearly an acre in Brentwood, right across from Maria Shriver’s place. The home was small by celebrity standards — 2,770 square feet, one story, five beds, three baths — but it was a pristine time capsule. Think brick fireplace, big sliders to the yard, a UFO-style light over the kitchen table, warm wood floors, and a light-soaked, glassy living space. The landscape design was by Garrett Eckbo, which, in design circles, is a big deal. The house had been featured in Progressive Architecture and documented by USModernist; videos shot in December 2022 showed it in impressively intact shape.

The city’s SurveyLA program had already flagged the property as potentially historic, and the L.A. Conservancy publicly warned that this was a highly intact example of its era. None of that translated to legal protection, so the bulldozers rolled. Along with the house, the Eckbo landscape went too. Before Pratt, the longtime resident was the late Hilda Rolfe, widow of Sam Rolfe, co-creator of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

What is going up instead

Pratt and Schwarzenegger are overseeing a new build on the lot: a modern farmhouse-style mansion designed by architect Ken Ungar, whose portfolio is heavy on high-end farmhouses. The project has been described as a 15,000-square-foot home, with reports also mentioning a two-story layout at roughly 5,000 square feet per floor, plus a three-car garage and a secondary unit by the pool. That math is obviously fuzzy — call it a very large main house with significant additional square footage in auxiliary spaces, which is typical for this style of spec-meets-custom mansion.

Why this blew up now

The demolition was already a sore spot for architecture fans, but it resurfaced after Diane Keaton died on October 11 at 79 following a short illness. Keaton spent nearly 20 years on the L.A. Conservancy board, was outspoken about saving historic architecture, and she lived the philosophy — buying, preserving, and restoring significant homes (including two designed by Lloyd Wright) and writing about the process in her book The House That Pinterest Built.

Back in 1999, she told Architectural Digest she believed in finding authentic houses and restoring them, not flattening them. She loved California’s architectural history — especially Spanish Colonial — and actively collected and revived it. Her own 9,206-square-foot home on the Brentwood/Pacific Palisades border was built with 75,000 reclaimed clay bricks she picked out from Chicago and styled with an industrial edge. According to a source who spoke to People, she walked that neighborhood daily, hat and sunglasses on, chatting with her dog like a person. Earlier this year, The U.S. Sun reported she tried to sell that house — which had reportedly been listed at more than $27 million — before deciding to keep it; she bought it in 2011 for $4.7 million. After her death, social posts revived the Pratt teardown, with some frustration veering into ugly territory (one post even joked about harm). The mood: disappointment, and a sense that this was exactly the kind of avoidable loss Keaton worked to prevent.

The preservation side responds

The L.A. Conservancy called the Zimmerman House a noteworthy and highly intact example of mid-century modern design and cautioned against its demolition. SurveyLA’s identification didn’t carry legal weight, and time ran out. Writer Adriene Biondo, covering mid-century homes for the Eichler Network, summed up the preservation community’s frustration:

"At the same time as architectural homes are being marketed as high-end, collectible art, others are being torn down to build new. Perhaps a historic-cultural monument designation could have saved the Zimmerman house or allowed the necessary time to delay demolition. Tragically, calls for preservation fell on deaf ears."

Quick timeline

• 1950: Craig Ellwood designs the Zimmerman House; landscape by Garrett Eckbo. Later featured in Progressive Architecture.
• December 2022: Videos show the home looking well-preserved inside and out.
• January 2023: Pratt and Schwarzenegger buy the property off-market for $12.5 million.
• 2023: The house and its grounds are cleared. L.A. Conservancy warns; SurveyLA notes potential historic status but no protections apply.
• 2025: Pratt’s new Ken Ungar-designed modern farmhouse moves forward with plans for a very large main house, a three-car garage, and a poolside secondary unit.
• October 11, 2025: Diane Keaton dies at 79 after a short illness; social posts re-ignite scrutiny of the teardown.

My take

Look, people can do what they want with their real estate. But flattening a Craig Ellwood with original Garrett Eckbo landscaping — a documented, intact piece of mid-century history — to put up yet another mega farmhouse? That is going to sting for anyone who cares about L.A.’s architectural fabric. The mixed reporting on square footage says plenty: it’s big, and it will loom over a lot where a low-slung classic used to breathe. Whether this dust-up nudges the city toward faster protections for vulnerable homes remains to be seen. In the meantime, it is not a great look for Pratt — especially in the shadow of Keaton’s legacy.

Where do you land on this? Is it just property rights, or should the city make it harder to bulldoze verified architectural works?