Richard Neutra’s legacy of modernist architecture, marbled throughout southern California, has a quieter history in San Francisco.

The Austrian-born architect designed just five homes in the city, including a Victorian rowhouse for refugees from Nazi Germany, his first redwood building, along with his first local project, the Largent House, named for the modest family who moved into 49 Hopkins Ave. in 1936.

The stark white house with crisp lines, first occupied by a schoolteacher and an artist, joined a body of work that some have mentioned in the same breath as Frank Lloyd Wright, whom Neutra briefly worked under and admired so much that he named a son after the renowned architect.

Seven decades later, in October 2017, the business end of a backhoe scoop tore into the redwood-and-brick house in the leafy Twin Peaks foothills, leveling nearly everything except a garage door and frame in what city planners have called ‘‘an illegal demolition.’’

Ross Johnston, the owner who bought the 1,312-square-foot house for $1.7 million last year, had permission to remodel if the first floor of the home remained intact, city planning commissioner Dennis Richards said.

On Thursday, Johnston sought retroactive approval of the demolition, along with permission to build a much larger, nearly 4,000-square-foot home in the footprint of the Largent House.

Johnston was denied. In a 5-0 vote, the San Francisco Planning Commission ordered Johnston to build the exterior of the Largent House exactly as it stood in 1936, using the same material and methods.

Johnston must also install a sidewalk plaque telling its 81-year-old history, from construction to destruction, and finally, some semblance of rebirth for Neutra’s modernist vision.

The plaque doubles as a ‘‘scarlet letter’’ for any developer looking to flip starter homes into mega-mansions, and a signal to any architecture buffs looking to see the real home that what will eventually stand there is a replica, Richards said.

Washington Post