Billionaire Ron Burkle is back in the real-estate news this week. The investor recently hefted the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Ennis house onto the market; the $23 million asking price is nearly as weighty as the home, which was constructed using 27,000 custom-fabricated blocks of concrete.

The Ennis house is designed with typical Wright verve and individuality, and employs the master architect’s artful ideas of using organic materials for singular expression of design. The Mayan-inspired house is megalithic in aesthetic and proportions, imposing in its sense of collapsed history. The blocks used were hand-formed using recycled granite from the building site; The Natural House, indeed.

But, in recent times, not the stable house. The Ennis was built in 1924, and the idiosyncratic design, left to welter in neglect, did not weather the years well. Before Mr. Burkle’s tenure as owner, the home had developed serious flaws in its structural integrity, and by 2009 the Ennis House Foundation had been formed to restore it. Burkle picked it up in 2011, for $4.5 million, and finished the job. The home had been offered at $15 million only a few years before, but the daunting extent of the renovation project was off-putting to buyers, and the price plummeted.

The house was featured in the now-classic Ridley Scott film ‘Blade Runner’ for interior shots of Deckard’s apartment building. It has been informally known as the ‘Blade Runner’ House since that time.

Ron Burkle is an investor and philanthropist. His net worth is estimated at $2.3 billion.

Photo credit: Ennis House