Widowed rare-book dealer and art collector Alice Millard commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design La Miniatura in 1923, her second home by the architect after her Prairie Style residence in Highland Park, Illinois. The three-story concrete residence, nestled in a wooded ravine in Pasadena's Prospect Historic District, became Wright's first textile block building and what he later called the earliest Usonian house. Construction proved difficult when the contractor quit mid-project, forcing Wright and Millard to complete the 2,400-square-foot house themselves at a final cost of approximately $17,000, nearly 70 percent over budget. Millard used the completed residence to sell and exhibit her rare books and host public art exhibitions.
The house features walls constructed from concrete blocks cast in wooden molds using sand and gravel excavated from the site itself, integrating the structure with its arroyo setting. Each block bears a cross motif, with some solid and others perforated to create delicate patterns of light and shadow on interior walls. Steel rods knitted through the block cores provide structural reinforcement. The floor plan follows a 16-inch module grid of two overlapping squares, anchored by a double-height living room beneath a flat roof. In 1926, Lloyd Wright added a detached book studio and gallery connected to the main house by a footbridge, along with terraced gardens that descend into the ravine and a reflecting pool.
