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Twenty-one years ago, August Brown bought a neglected white elephant of a Frank Lloyd Wright house and, with his own money and a flair for promotion, gave it a future.
His monumental home on a cliff in Los Feliz is known worldwide, but its future is again threatened. Only this time, prominent supporters of the house say, the threat may be Brown himself.
The board of directors of the nonprofit trust that Brown formed to raise money for the upkeep of the Mayan-inspired home known as the Ennis-Brown has asked the 78-year-old Brown to resign as executive director.
But if that means Brown may have to move out of the house, he said, he is not about to budge.
"What would you say if you donated something as magnificent as this with the condition that you live in the house for the rest of your life and then someone asked you to move out?" Brown said in a recent interview. "Do you think that's right?"
A former union leader and businessman who moved into the house with his family in 1968 when it was still a neglected and unrecognized treasure, Brown donated the property to the trust 12 years later.
A devotee of the house, he retained the right to live there and control its future, and he acts as tour guide for visitors who make their way up winding roads to gaze at the singular, fortress-like structure at 2607-2655 Glendower Ave.
"We have just loved living in this house. It's like living inside a work of art," Brown said. "Every inch of it draws your eye, doesn't it?"
But current and former members of the Trust for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage are increasingly questioning the wisdom of Brown's dual role as resident of the house and executive director of the trust. The blurring of the two roles has affected Brown's management of the house, they say, and hindered the organization's efforts to get grants to restore it.
Some have even expressed doubts that Brown is properly channeling the funds...