Ugly Angel

Still obsessed

2012-05-20T00:31:00.001-07:00

I've been obsessed with The Talmadge on Wilshire for a decade now.

I may never live on Park Avenue, but I'm still holding out hope for an apartment at The Talmadge, together with a complete upscale revival of Mid-Wilshire from MacArthur Park to Western. (I can't bring myself to call this corridor "Koreatown," in spite of the city's signage, although I'm willing to concede that moniker to the area just a couple of blocks south and north of Wilshire.)

There's certainly no dearth of Talmadge apartments to be had (they are rentals) and the regularity of vacancies appearing on craigslist.com makes me wonder whether there's not something drastically wrong with the management.

The building is not in the best of shape (how will you look at 90?) , but I would far prefer leaving it as is to giving it over to a conscience-challenged developer to gut and turn into "lofts."

Thank Zeus this hasn't happened yet. Each apartment has a formal dining room, and the galley-style kitchens still have their swinging doors, through which the "help" (some apartments have rooms for live-in maids) might once have bustled out pheasant under glass for a dinner party for six bon-vivants. There are some good things to be said about benign neglect, I suppose.

I've looked at several one-bedrooms in this building at various points, usually on weekends when the security desk will give "prospective tenants" free access to spend a leisurely hour pretending to live in the Los Angeles of Norma Talmadge.

I snapped a few photos on the last visit, and used that amazing tool Photoshop to whip up a nice little pad for myself along what was once (and still should be) Los Angeles' chicest boulevard.

The renditions are far from perfect, but a guy's gotta dream . . .

Shall we say dinner at 8?

Antigua del Mar Tile

2012-03-05T00:20:00.015-08:00

In my previous post, I visited the home of Lorna Auerbach, owner of Antigua del Mar Tile, based in Santa Monica. As promised, here's a look at the artisanal Spanish tiles that she deals in.

A sample board with several patterns.

Antigua del Mar is a consortium of ceramic tile artists with studios throughout Spain—artists that Lorna has sought out on many trips to Andalucia and other regions of Spain.

These are handcrafted tiles, made in the same manner as those created from the 12th through 18th centuries, and using patterns that are historically authentic. Unlike industrially produced high-fire tiles, they exhibit slight variations in pattern from tile to tile, the sign of true hand-craftsmanship.

Many of the tiles she offers are documented in definitive reference books on the topic, such as Alun Graves' Tile and Tilework, published by London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

Lorna used many of the handmade tiles in the design of her Pacific Palisades residence. They are especially effective in the exterior cladding of the Moorish arch windows shown in my previous post.

The tiles used in the photo above.

Spain's seven centuries of Moorish rule, from 711 until 1492 AD, resulted in an abundance of intricate geometric patterns, both rigorous and playful, figurative decoration being forbidden under Islamic law.

But aside from abstract Moorish-influenced designs, Antigua del Mar's Spanish artisans also re-create later figurative works in ceramic, such as this multi-tile plaque. Custom work is also welcome.

Followers of interior design may have noticed Lorna's recent ad in the current March-April issue of Veranda.

While the majority of the artists that Lorna works with are traditionalists, their ranks include some who are using cutting-edge technology to re-create the past. The exquisite marble tile below is cut using a computer-guided laser. The pattern is sharply defined, but variations in the material itself assure that each tile will be absolutely unique.
Contact Lorna at Antigua del Mar at 310-315-9870 or info@antiguadelmartile.com.

Many thanks again to Lorna Auerbach for her generous hospitality in producing this and the previous post.

Andalucia in the Palisades

2012-02-12T21:08:00.001-08:00

When I blogged about workmanship in this previous post, I used an Andalucian-style house in Pacific Palisades as an example. Although the architect of record was Richard Landry, the house was largely designed by its owner, Lorna Auerbach, who worked with Landry on every aspect of the planning.

Recently, Lorna graciously invited me into her very private but also very welcoming world.

Lorna Auerbach at the outer door of her house on Amalfi Drive.
The 18th-century gates were sourced in Ronda, and the surrounding tiles are
reproductions from Seville, based on a wainscot from a 16th-century palace.

Tile is considered a sign of wealth in southern Europe. Trying to source authentic tile for this project was an impetus for Lorna to found her own import tile company, Antigua del Mar. (More about this Santa Monica-based company in my next post.)

The house has no doorbell: "Use the knocker—it's authentic!"

The entry courtyard, with tower.

The entry courtyard from above.

"What I love about walking down the streets of Córdoba or Sevilla, is the sense of mystery," says Lorna, who is an avid Hispanophile and an authority of the history of tile. "The gates are always closed, and you wonder what's going on behind them."

Lorna, who grew up in Santa Monica Canyon, where all the streets were at one time cobbled, retains a romantic vision of the atmosphere of this erstwhile Spanish land grant area.

"There was something very magical about growing up in that environment," she says. "When I met Richard Landry, he asked me a very leading question: 'What are your strongest childhood memories of home?'" The ensuing dialogue between the designer and the architect led to the eventual look and feel of the house.

A reproduction of a 16th-century tile plaque in a house in Sevilla—a map of the city—graces the entry hall.

Lorna avoided down-lights in the house. Lighting fixtures are Moroccan, Spanish, and Mexican, some original and some replicated by local artisans. The owner also has no qualms about purchasing fixtures from retailers such as Lamps Plus—if they work in the space.

Every room has at least three window walls for cross-ventilation (air-conditioning was installed only on the second level), as well as its own private patio or outdoor space, most of them decorated with artisanal ceramic ware.

A colorful patio off the home office.

Lorna acted as her own interior decorator, sourcing from flea markets and even becoming a dealer in order to have "insider" access to the best merchandise.

The living room viewed from the kitchen.

The dining room also serves as a library.

One of my favorite features of the house is the media room, with generous fenestration of steel-frame windows below Moorish arches, which are covered with tile on the exterior. The motif was copied from a 1920s house in Santa Barbara.

The gorgeous landscaping is by Mark David Levine.

The tiles used on the arches are available from Lorna's company, Antigua del Mar.

Even the undersides of the balconies are tiled. "You see that all over Spain. It's the idea of surprise," Lorna explains. "The idea that everywhere you look there's something interesting to catch the eye."

The design of the wrought iron is taken from a Spanish original.

"The idea of surprise." The undersides of the balconies are covered in tile.

The house is centered around the light-filled double-height central hall, where a skylight allows the California sun to pour in and find its way throughout the house.

Bringing the outdoors in.

A sitting area outside the master suite.

Lorna selected the artwork throughout the residence according to her personal taste and its appropriateness to the mood of the house. The mix includes classic California plein air paintings, work by local artists, collectible posters, fine art photographs and ceramic art.

A landscape of Ronda, Spain, in the master suite sitting room.

A naïviste painting by Los Angeles artist Antonio Rael.

A study for a mural by Sam Hyde Harris.

The house was built by Tyler Development.

This photo by Erhard Pfeiffer.

Many thanks to Lorna Auerbach for her generosity in showing me the house. Watch for my next post about her tile company, Antigua del Mar.

From Belgium with style

2012-02-07T23:34:00.001-08:00

I got a nice note recently from David Manrique, the Stateside account manager for the Belgian luxury hardware manufacturer Vervloet, founded in Brussels in 1905.

I'm posting below a few pages from the Vervloet catalogs (which can be downloaded from the Vervloet website). The products range from Louis XIV (who is due for a revival any time now) to Beaux Arts to Art Déco to contemporary classics.

Very impressive design and workmanship, on a par with P. E. Guerin, I'd say. I've always wanted Cremone bolts on my French windows. I'm keeping this web address handy . . . but first I need the windows.

Interested parties can reach David Manrique at D.Manrique@vervloet.com.

Trolley Patrón

2011-11-14T23:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post on Curbed L.A. got me thinking . . .

Perhaps the name "Dolly Patron" was in fact a scary Freudian typo on the part of WeHo Confidential, but why shouldn't a major spirits brand like Patrón Tequila sponsor free nighttime trolleys in WeHo and downtown Hollywood, where bar and clubland action is the main draw after dark?

Trolley Patrón (proposed).

Patrón already commands a sizeable chunk of the Hollywood skyline with its snazzy white neon sign atop the Equitable Building (see previous post). Why shouldn't this brand expand its clout in Hollywood and/or WeHo with free bar-hopping jitneys? Can we say "tax write-off"?

My admittedly tacky day-for-night Photoshop rendering aside, this is seriously worth considering. (Are you listening, WeHo? Garcetti?)

Given Patrón owner John Paul DeJoria's other business interests, perhaps riders could be offered Paul Mitchell hair treatments on-board. For a fee, of course.

A little night musing

2011-11-09T23:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not a bar-hound, but I do love bars.

I should be thankful, then, for living in downtown Hollywood, which has always had—and now more than ever—a plethora of engaging watering holes. (One irascible local activist, a caustic Diogenes who roams around these parts in a dirty seersucker jacket instead of a barrel, sarcastically refers to the town as Alcohollywood . . . but I suspect he's just someone who can't hold his liquor.)

"Alcohollywood" (from Curbed LA)

Unlike the under-30 crowd that fills most of these places, I don't do velvet ropes, preening queues, walkie-talkie-equipped doorman, or cover charges, which effectively eliminates 85 percent of Hollywood nightlife from my consideration, making the choices that are left all the more attractive.

Favorite haunts include the remarkably attitude-free public house with the overly understated name The Bar, newish Harvard & Stone (a contender that needs to work on its anemic single malt collection), and the simply indispensable Boardner's, which can always be counted on for people-watching sans the scene.

Last night I visited Wood & Vine, a 150-seat restaurant-cum-saloon on Hollywood Boulevard that opened earlier this year. Taking over the Taft Building space formerly occupied by the leasing office for the ill-fated W Hollywood Residences next door (of which, per a recent Curbed post, only a measly 15 of 143 have sold), it's a welcome addition to the world's most famous intersection. (Whoever thought this town revolved around the corner of Hollywood and Highland was sorely deceived.)

Restaurant specialty firm Kelly Architects redid the space as a lofted two-story room. Interior designer Kenneth Brown used a lumber yard's worth of reclaimed and faux-reclaimed wood to created a toweringly dramatic bar, stylishly accoutered and fetchingly lit with a couple of fabu Mad Men–worthy midcentury sconces and other fixtures using bare-filament Edison-style bulbs. The mood is dark, sexy, and ripe for romance—over retro cocktails, natch.

A spacious patio in the rear has a fireplace, bare-bulb string lights, and a view of the looming posterior of the Taft Building (not the old girl's best side) and its fluorescent office lights that gives the entire place a kind of noirish Naked City vibe. Eventually, I'm told, movies will be projected against the side of the adjacent building.

The upstairs sports windows overlooking the boulevard but shaded from the glare of the Kliegs and passers-by by slatted wooden blinds, making it the perfect place for Jake Gittes to take a meeting with Evelyn Mulwray without being counter-detected.

And check out those floors.

Pull up a stool, doll. Drinks are on me.

Flying saucers over Hollywood!

2011-10-27T23:18:00.001-07:00

YouTube video by GrimlyForming PW. Music: "We've Come To Take The Earth Away" by The Driving Stupid (1966)

I'm sure this wasn't the first time aliens invaded Hollywood to wreak havoc on humanity and architecture, and it won't be the last. But it may well be the cheesiest.

The KFWB radio antennae on the Warner Cinerama (later the Pacific Hollywood Theatre) never looked more useful: Maybe these avant-garde creatures, hell-bent on leveling all that is human, can be contacted, reasoned with, and talked out of destroying Los Angeles?

Not a chance.

The preservationists following them drive right by my street on the then brand new Hollywood Freeway at 0:47. Castle Argyle is in the background.

How many other Hollywood locations—long gone or still standing—can you find?

Happy Halloween.

Food for thought

2011-10-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

Like many of us, I live in an enclave of NIMBYism (mine is in a neighborhood of downtown Hollywood), where "development" categorically equals "anti-environmental," "anti-ecological," "anti-green," "anti-community," and perhaps just downright "evil."

Why should this be so?

I've often wondered why the same people who oooh and aaah at the glittering Manhattan or Chicago skylines, with their towering skyscrapers, begin to polish up the pitchforks when a developer like Millennium Partners even suggests putting two skyscrapers in downtown Hollywood. (The tallest of the two, at 48 stories, would still be less than half the height of Chicago's 100-story mixed-use John Hancock Center.)

One rendering of the project (below) seems intentionally to disguise the height of the towers, probably to quell local phobia about their dwarfing of the "iconic" Capitol Records Building—which nonetheless shows up for the squat little runt it is in this drawing.

Millennium Hollywood (proposed).

Arguments about such towers "spoiling the view" hold little weight in my book. On the contrary, for urban dwellers towers are the view, and if anyone is under the illusion that the seemingly sacrosanct Capitol Records Building is an architectural marvel that can't be obscured, just let him or her reflect that someone felt the same way about the existing structures that the Capitol Records Building—at a whopping 13 stories, then the zoning height limit—obscured from view in 1956. It completely obliterates my own view of the Taft Building, a much handsomer structure, for example.

A more honest and circumspect rendering (below) shows that the two towers might provide a vibrant architectural addition to the downtown Hollywood skyline and prove a nexus for further development.

Hollywood Millennium (proposed).

Which brings me to this book:

The Triumph of the City, by Edward Glaeser (Penguin Press, $29.95 hardcover)

Glaeser is an urban economist and he has some very surprising—and, for the NIMBYs, very likely upsetting—things to say about the kinds of buildings that these urban acrophobes detest.

One of his main premises, for example, is that denser, taller cities are actually greener than shorter, more spread out ones—and that they are certainly far, far greener than suburbia, where everyone drives. Being a Harvard academic, Glaeser has plenty of facts and figure to back up his assertions, but the book is hardly dry. Instead, it reads like an engaging conversation with someone you meet at a cocktail party, a well- informed contrarian, who gives you a whole new way of looking at something.

Glaeser has some harsh words for the Bay Area environmentalists, for example, who proudly oppose building in the San Francisco region—thereby passively encouraging development in previously pristine areas such as the Nevada desert or in highly "brown" regions such as Phoenix, and ultimately contributing to overall carbon emissions. "Think globally"? Hardly.

For Glaeser, development—and, yes, that means skyscrapers—is a sign of urban health, but also of planetary health. Pointing to the viability of tall metropolises such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, he makes a case for upward rather than outward expansion, and shows how dense, concentrated cities can provide the greenest of all possible worlds.

I love a good contrarian as much as I detest NIMBYs.

"Come see for yourself."

2011-09-21T21:17:00.001-07:00

So reads the slogan for Playa Vista, the planned community on L.A.'s far Westside.

I decided to spend a Sunday afternoon taking them up on the offer. I began where I begin my tour of any city: downtown.

Downtown Playa Vista.

The town doesn't gradually emerge out of the fabric of the surrounding urban landscape, the way, say, Venice does (to take another planned community as an example). Rather, it simply appears: distinctly set off—not hermetically, but emotionally and architecturally—from its environs, just like a movie set. Might it be argued that this makes it a quintessentially Los Angeles phenomenon?

At first glance, downtown is not an unappealing place, with vaguely Spanish Revival and Mediterranean architecture and a clean and genteel, if not particularly refined or polished, air. Like a little chunk of the O.C. hauled north.

Not unappealing at first glance.

But long views down several of Playa Vista's streets show the places where the town—and its movie-set reality—abruptly end.

A place where the town simply ends.

At Playa Vista's center is Concert Park, the town commons (one of several thoughtfully planned parks), where, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a community that, per the official website, boasts "more than 6500 residents," I counted a grand total of 19 humans. Many of the strolling denizens seemed to exude the overly conscious self-importance of those who have committed their lives, and their children's, to founding the first settlement on Mars.

Just as I was wondering whether I had wandered into a sequel to The Truman Show, to my relief I ran across a group of six or seven unkempt, woolly-looking cigar smokers (screenwriters, surely) who had colonized one set of benches on Pacific Promenade and were having what seemed like a ritual Sunday puff-fest. They, too, were self-conscious, but in that good, old-fashioned L.A. way. Perhaps Playa Vista is not so hermetically sealed after all.

But as far as I could tell, the town has only one restaurant (Piknic), one coffeeshop (a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, rival Starbucks perhaps being unwilling to commit in an area where consumer footfall is sparser than my hair), one dry-cleaner's, and a food market selling purportedly wholesome and probably overpriced comestibles.

Offering dozens of different housing options from various corporate builders, ranging from rental apartments to condos to private houses, Playa Vista has no shortage of building styles to choose from, making it a diachronic theme park of Los Angeles architectural history, where Spanish Revival revival faces the soulless anemia of the late twentieth century without blinking. A few examples:

1920s: The "Villa d'Este" (with nary an apology to Davis and Davis).

1930s: handsome Mid-Wilshire Moderne.

1960s: Rat Pack Palm Springs.

1970s: King's Road condo.

1980s: industrial whimsy à la Westside Pavilion.

1990s: corrugated cool.

No matter the variety on the exterior, most the floorplans for these dwellings exhibit the same lack of imagination that has residents entering their own premises, like delivery boys, through the kitchen, or entertaining dinner guests in their foyers.

Back on the outside, many of the windows are flimsy, ill-fitting prefab units with glaringly fake muntins. If this is a planned community, why was there no planning?

Shameful builder shortcuts galore.

I moved on to another part of town: Icon, a development that includes a number of private residences. Here, the architecture takes a definite turn for the better, and the interior "streets" (read: service alleys) are wider and better paved than most avenues in Hollywood.

A Monterey-style private residence.

The "streets" of Icon are glorified service alleys.

The landscaping is exemplary throughout Playa Vista and is maintained completely with recycled water and, one would assume, battalions of cheap Hispanic labor. The plants, if not the people, seem gloriously happy here.

A nice shady street.

Playa Vista is adjacent to the state-owned Ballona Wetlands, which (to the developers' chargin) has prevented the town's further spread toward the west and (to the residents's chagrin) prohibits direct beach access. But, hey, it does have its own branch of the Los Angeles Public Library and its own ZIP code: 90094.

The Ballona Wetlands, with Playa Vista outlined in red.

I wanted to like Playa Vista better than I did.

Maybe in 50 years (if these buildings last that long), Playa Vista will be a vibrant and nicely patinated borough integrated into the rich, complex tessitura of Los Angeles. As it is now, it's a town apart, preternatually triste, and, for me at least, a bit alienating, perhaps attracting those for whom authentic Los Angeles is too dirty, too dangerous, too decrepit. A faux place in a real city.

Go see for yourself.

The lady vanishes

2011-09-18T22:44:00.000-07:00

In the short 2 weeks of my absence from Hollywood, the former KFWB radio building at 6226-6230 Yucca Street was demolished, leaving a dirt lot and an improved view from the northeast of the Capitol Records building.

Gone without a trace.

The building, although it had a few perfunctory Art Déco touches, especially in the tower (its ~~best~~ only feature), was an unlovable bunker in its most recent incarnation. I was in the former KFWB studios on several occasions on business and it was as unglamorous within as without. I'm afraid it will be very little missed.

Unlovable and unmissed.

A former grocery store (one assumes it had windows at that time, a feature which would have vastly improved its appearance), the 1934 building was later home to Sound Recorders Studio, scene of the controversial remastering of The Beatles' White Album at the insistence of George Harrison, as reported here by Beatles maven Bruce Spizer.

The White Album, remastered at this location.

Surely its connection with the Fab Four would have qualified this stucco-sheathed masterpiece for historic preservation status, no? Where oh where was the L.A. Conservancy in our hour of need? Alas, too late.

Followers of the ongoing reality soap opera called Hollywood Development will remember this parcel as the site of Second Street Ventures' proposed (and not unattractive) "6230" project, which, after some legal tussles with Capitol Records owner EMI, fell into the black hole of the Great Recession, along with several other ambitious projects in the immediate neighborhood.

The "6230" mixed use project as proposed in 2007.

The prognosis for a turnaround of the economy is, I'm afraid, not optimistic. But a dirt lot is a start.

Paris thoughts

2011-08-28T00:36:00.001-07:00

I'm leaving today for five days in Roussillon, in southwestern France, and then a (much needed) week in Paris. Rain is predicted in the capital, but that will hardly stop my ramblings in my second-favorite city on Earth.

My second-favorite city.

This reminds me that when visitors comment on the admittedly rampant ugliness of Los Angeles, my first response is inevitably to point out that Los Angeles is just 231 years old—an infant still in diapers, sometimes badly stained.

Architectural democracy in action.

Paris, which most certainly consider one of the world's most beautiful cities, is an order of magnitude older, having been around for nearly 2,300 years and counting.

"Come back when Los Angeles is 2,300 years old and see how beautiful it will be," I tell the doubters.

Of course, what we know as Paris today was very largely the result of the draconian rebuilding of the city by Georges-Eugène Haussmann in the mid-19th century, very late, relatively speaking, in the the city's history.

Paris sous la pluie.

Perhaps what Los Angeles needs is a visionary of the caliber of Haussmann who will rake away all the mini-malls and dingbats, widen (and repave!) the boulevards, and bring some sense of order into the urban free-for-all that is L.A.

Is there a Baron Haussmann in our future?

If only it were this easy.

See you in two weeks.

On Revuelta Way

2011-08-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

If there were ever a brick-and-mortar example of the dictum that money can't buy taste—well, not good taste—it's this newly listed mansion in lower Bel-Air, which has nearly 26,000 square feet of living space, almost all of it absolutely atrocious.

"The encrusted style" exemplified.

The living room is furnished with seating in what I like to call "the encrusted style"—a perversion of design in which every surface writhes with vermicelli-inspired curlicues and nightmarish arabesques, all of it misproportioned and slathered with a surfeit of gold leaf that would make Midas retch.

Louie the Whoie?

The seating is arranged not for conversation but for staring at one another—or perhaps for a belly-dancing exhibition.

Meanwhile, in the dining room, things are scarcely less gaud-awful.

Seats 50 oil sheiks for dinner.

"More is more."

The sickly icing on this nauseating cake is the pompous master bedroom, which has all the intimacy of Vegas casino, complete with with three hi-def TV screens.

This pile of pretense can be yours for a cool $23.9 million. Any takers?

"I'll take it!"

Resurrecting a lost neighborhood

2011-08-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

. . . one house—and one story—at a time.

The amazingly detailed blog Berkeley Square Los Angeles is slowly but steadily bringing back to life the once-chic Berkeley Square in West Adams. Raise your hand if you've ever heard of it. (I hadn't.)

This gated community, once home to the elite of Los Angeles business and society, was lost in 1972 to the construction of the 10 Freeway.

The relatively anonymous but tirelessly assiduous blogger provides post-by-post information about the houses that formerly graced these streets.

He also goes beyond the façades, to deliver the stories behind the houses.

This being Los Angeles, the tales include murder, adultery, pandering, and . . . well, read and find out.

Parkway use and abuse

2011-08-02T22:31:00.000-07:00

Apologies (and thanks) to the several followers of this blog who noted my extended hiatus from invective. I have no excuse except an occasional Oblomov-like sense of futility. I'm back now and plan to pan with relish as the summer winds down.

* * * * * * *

As an avid driver, I still tend to think of a parkway as a "broad landscaped thoroughfare," in Webster's definition. The Burbank Boulevard between Sepulveda and Balboa sort of thing, for example.

But for the Los Angeles Department of Public Works, a parkway is defined as "the area of the street between the back of curb and the sidewalk that is typically planted or landscaped."

Whatever you call it, this strip of green fronting the street can add tremendously to the quality of a neighborhood.

Creative use of the parkway as a tomato and herb garden on Tremaine Avenue.

Alas, this absentee owner in Hollywood has let the parkway in front of her building become a mini-wasteland, complete with razorgrass, downed palm fronts, broken concrete curbs, and a shattered Panasonic television set that has been there since January.

Parkway as dumpway, Argyle Avenue.

Panasonic: "Ideas for Life"

Upkeep of the parkway is the property owner's responsibility, with consequences for neglect. (The above example will be remedied. Stay tuned for "after" pictures.)

The department's Bureau of Street Services has a downloadable Residential Parkway Landscaping Guideline brochure that spells it all out and also provides a list of suitable alternatives to turf and televisions.

FOR SALE: Garage with house attached.

2011-04-17T22:37:00.001-07:00

The overly prominent garage, placed in front of and more or less obscuring the house, is not a strictly Southern California phenomenon, but the art does seem to reach its zenith here in the land of the automobile.

In the case immediately below, we might actually be thankful that the three-car garage hides from view the banal façade of this cliché-laden "builder Mediterranean" with its off-the-shelf windows, grotesquely proportioned detailing, and exaggeratedly tall entryway.

A few more examples from recent listings.

As much as I love driving and cars (I currently own two of them), the garage is a service area of a house and belongs in the rear , off to the side, or in some other position subordinate to the house.

Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists

2011-04-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

In late February, I met Stefanos Polyzoides and Elizabeth Moule at their Pasadena offices—the former studio of Wallace Neff—for a story published in the April 2011 design issue of Arroyo Monthly (available here).

This is an extended transcript of the interview, in which the couple discuss their Pasadena-based practice, Moule & Polyzoides Architects and Urbanists, and give some insight on the New Urbanism, the movement they co-founded in 1993 with Peter Calthorpe, Andrés Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Dan Solomon.

Stefanos Polyzoides and Elizabeth Moule in the courtyard
of their Pasadena office, formerly the studio of Wallace Neff.

On The New Urbanism

UglyAngel: Your involvement with New Urbanism is well known. How have you developed and deepened that involvement?

Stefanos Polyzoides: On top of the general theory of New Urbanism, which Liz and I are obviously very engaged with, we also recently wrote a series of guidelines for sustainable development and sustainable design: Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism.

So we’ve taken the subject of the New Urbanism one step further and tried to merge it, both in theory and in practice, with sustainability.

Elizabeth Moule: Inherent in the initial idea of the New Urbanism was a principle of sustainability: that we live in more compact places, and in doing so are able to preserve agricultural land and natural habitat; that we reduce automobile emissions by walking more, biking more, and using transit and, in so doing, address climate change.

River North, San Antonio, study. © Moule & Polyzoides

When we were initially involved, in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the particular environmental issues weren’t so present as they are today. But Stefanos and I were very early critics of suburban sprawl, because the metropolis was being taken very, very far out and we were bothered by taking out so much beautiful land. We were concerned that what we were building in its place wasn’t as good as what was being taken out.

Del Mar Station, Pasadena. © Moule & Polyzoides

We had nascent environmental goals then, and we were just as concerned with the kinds of social issues that suburban sprawl was inducing. We were certainly critics from an esthetic point of view, as well as from a larger lifestyle point of view. We objected to the point that it was a lifestyle that you had to have—that you didn’t have any choice, because that zoning rules were such that you couldn’t do anything else. As we were starting to practice, working in different parts of the country, we became deeply concerned about the issues of water, of habitat, of energy, of conservation.

Particularly on the architecture side we really ramped up on sustainability. We knew that what we were saying in the Charter for the New Urbanism and Ahwanhee Principles had latent environmental values in them, but they weren’t explicit. So we re-wrote a framework for sustainability called Canons of Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism.

UA: Is the New Urbanism communism or socialism, as conservative opponents would have us believe?

EM: We’ve gotten that for years. The New Urbanism is not communism; it’s not even socialism. It’s totally market-driven.

The thing is this: We’re not interested in making the same mistake that the rules for suburbia were all about, which is that it was mandated. What we’re trying to say is that there’s an alternative out there: people can get involved in making cities through an open, public process called the charrette. People can make decisions on their own about where they want to be, instead of a zoning approach imposed from above, with the same rules for the entire country. Nobody ever had a say in that.

What we’re saying is, in a democracy people can decide where they want to be, and here is an alternative. If people want an alternative that’s suburbia, someone else can design that for them—we’re not going to do it.

SP: It’s fundamentally about choice. It’s about an alternative to the half-regulated universe we have which produces crap. With some similar degree of regulation, or perhaps even less so, we can produce something halfway decent, the way we used to a hundred, 80 or 70 years ago, before suburban sprawl.

UA: The current political climate doesn’t seem too amenable to the New Urbanism.

EM: There’s a political structure in this country that has a particular point of view. But if you look at the geo-political story right now, the question about whether the United States can continue to rely on a source of oil in the Middle East becomes a question of whether this country’s security should really rely on that source of energy in a part of the world that’s very unstable.

The extent to which the rest of us can work on solutions that don’t rely so heavily on that source of energy is a very important thing. We’re not so much anti-petroleum as we are pro-walking, pro-solar, pro-other alternatives.

Mission Meridian Village, South Pasadena.© Moule & Polyzoides

SP: The thing that’s very ironic is that all of these revolutions [Egypt, Libya, etc.] are happening in public space. So you have to ask the question, what kind of politics does an urbanism that destroys public space or does not produce public space generate? And the answer is self-evident: It’s a public space in which nobody gathers to do anything. As a society, we need to organize ourselves around certain kinds of places that, more than our guns, allow us to claim our rights peacefully.

UA: The Congress for the New Urbanism is worldwide movement now.

EM: There are chapters all over the world: Australia, Canada, Europe, South and Central America.

SP: Not Asia . . .

EM: Not yet! But we just hosted the head of design from China’s major university. It’s an international movement because a lot developing nations take their development ideas from the United States.

SP: When we started this practice in 1990, we tried to decide what we would call ourselves. I suggested “architects and urbanists” and Liz glazed over, because at the time the word had such little currency. Now, urbanism has become a given. Perhaps our greatest contribution is that the notion of urbanism—the idea that cities merit significant attention—has made it to the top of every agenda in this country: the academic agenda, the political agenda, the municipal agenda. The fight now is about how we do it, but the fact that we need to do it is absolutely without doubt.

On Their Projects

UA: What are some your current projects or recent projects you’re particularly proud of?

SP: Last year we finished a new main street for Lancaster in the form of a ramblas.

EM: Lancaster, in the exurbs, was a poster child for sprawl. But interestingly, they were able to put a very big pot together to create a new downtown, around a vibrant, 24-hour, mixed-use downtown.

Lancaster: the new downtown. © Moule & Polyzoides

Downtown Lancaster used to be highway strip. When people drive down the street at 60 miles an hour, they’re not stopping at retail stores. The ramblas adds a spectacular public space, with an allée of trees right down the center, and a place for public celebrations. We made a whole new civic space. And the interesting thing is, we didn’t go to them; they came to us and said “We have this problem.”

SP: It has to do with respecting people enough to give them something they can claim as their own and form their life around, whether it’s in their building, their block, or their whole community. There are real people, real economies, real lives, real jobs, and real aspirations in these kinds of places.

UA: Lancaster was featured prominently in Mike Davis’s book Dead Cities.

EM: I’ll have to call up Mike Davis and tell him it’s been brought back! (laughter)

SP: We’re doing a new downtown plan for Fresno, which has the greatest concentration of poverty in the United States. It’s a very tight-knit community, much maligned in the world but very admired by us as a client and as a place.

Plan for Fresno. © Moule & Polyzoides

'We’re working on a campus building of some seriousness and depth at Scripps College. We’re also creating a new street between Claremont McKenna College and Scripps—taking a no man’s land a making a beautiful street out of it.

Scripps College Residence Hall, study. © Moule & Polyzoides

Abroad, we’re working on a small series of town in Panama as well as on a project in the Mauritius Islands in the Indian Ocean—a resort town and a number of hotels—and trying to persuade the Mauritians to develop a sustainability strategy for their island. This place, which is 27 hours by plane from Los Angeles, is as sprawled, as car-oriented, as mindless about development as the San Fernando Valley was 30 years ago.

Le Chaland, Mauritius, study. © Moule & Polyzoides

SP: One project in Pasadena that we’re hugely proud of, which most people might not know about, is the North Fair Oaks affordable housing project [Fair Oaks Court] for Pasadena Heritage. It was not a particularly nice part of northwest Pasadena.

Fair Oaks Court, Pasadena. © Moule & Polyzoides

EM: We’ve woven the neighborhood back together. It’s a nice complement to the retail that was concluded at Fair Oaks and Orange Grove. It’s a project we’re particularly proud of because it’s affordable, lower middle market housing, and we’ve been committed to developing high-quality housing for every income bracket.

SP: It’s amazing accomplishment to build that of housing, with that kind of quality and that kind presence.

On Their Home: The Hale Solar Laboratory

UA: You live on the grounds of the Hale Solar Laboratory, near the Caltech campus. Tell me about how that happened.

EM: It’s a very interesting structure built for George Ellery Hale, an astronomer who was instrumental in the development of Caltech and who founded Mount Wilson Observatory. The building was designed by Johnson, Coate and Kaufmann.

The Hale Solar Laboratory (Johnson, Coate and Kaufmann, 1924).

Along with being a solar observatory, it also has an amazing library. We had our eye on that building for a long, long time; we said if it was the last thing we did, we were going to buy that building. It came up for sale and we were fortunate to be able to purchase it. It comes with a garden designed by Beatrix Ferrand.

The reason we were interested in it was, first of all, we loved the garden and building very much, and we would be able to house our architecture book collection in the library. We’ve also always been dilettante astronomers, and it’s located within walking distance to our kids’ school, to our office, and to shopping on Lake Avenue.

There’s currently a house on the property in which we live and to which we’ve done some work, but one of our long-term dreams is to build a house on that property.

UA: Is the observatory still functional?

SP: The observatory is perfectly usable. It’s an antique, but it’s a working observatory—one of the few solar observatories in the world.

EM: The building encapsulates that wonderful entrepreneurial spirit of George Ellery Hale [1868-1938], who was a real renaissance person. He was not only an astronomer; he also designed every piece of equipment in the laboratory and had it manufactured. He was involved in the arts. He was interested in history; the library has a lot of Egyptian pieces in it. Hale also sat on the board that selected the architect for the Pasadena Civic Center. He is the kind of figure that we want to live close to—the kind of person that ought to populate Pasadena today.

On Esthetics in Architecture

UA: Is there a social value to beautiful buildings?

SP: There’s an environmental value to beautiful buildings that is indisputable. An ugly building has a very limited life because it’s unloved by anybody but the person who made it. That person disappears from the scene, and the building becomes a candidate for demolition.

The fact is that we cannot afford any longer to be thinking of demolishing buildings. It takes energy to build a building, it takes energy to use a building, it takes an enormous amount of energy to destroy a building, and it takes even more energy to restart the cycle. We need to think about buildings being forever as we build them, or most of them in any case.

Seven Fountains, West Hollywood. © Moule & Polyzoides

Beautiful buildings have the advantage of being claimed. Like children, they’re being claimed and they’re being loved and they’re being grown. They’re being endowed with energy and with care, and when places are meaningful to people, they end up being permanent. Liz and I have been arguing for years that the number one value of sustainability is not pinned to technology but to beauty and permanence. A Greek village or Italian village or Moroccan village has more value in terms of sustainability than a neutral, abstract, unclaimed modern something out there.

UA: Why is vernacular architecture in Greece or Italy more wholesome and rewarding than the kind of vernacular architecture we find today in the United States?

EM: It has a lot to do with the fact that those building are still made by hand, by individuals who care about craft. They’ve evolved out of societies that are not always wealthy; they do well with limited means, and they realize that when they put something in place it is going to be there for a long time, so they invest more in the initial capital of building something right the first time.

Private house "El Patio Andaluz," Beverly Hills. © Moule & Polyzoides

In the current financial structure for building housing, in the developer home-building paradigm, there’s a very limited amount of money devoted to design, maybe an even more limited amount of money dedicated to significant, real, deep, physical fabric. There’s a lot of money devoted to fighting cities and to the political process of getting the project entitled, which is really about shoving something down people’s throats. And there’s a lot of money given to financial entities, who stand to gain a lot from those projects.

The equation should be reversed.

UA: What you think of Rick Caruso’s developments, such as The Americana and The Grove?

SP: They’re too inward and too much like malls. They’re too controlled. They’re faux cities.

EM: What Caruso has done is to reposition a mall. The difference between a real city and a mall is who controls the public realm, and the public realm is really in private hands in those spaces. It’s not part of the city fabric; it’s not a real civic space because it’s not public, it’s private.

I have high hopes that we can make building fabric for housing that is just as durable and permanent and well-designed as a lot of other kinds of structures. The kind of housing that we’ve been trying to achieve is one where the buildings feel very substantial and part of an existing place. That’s a huge challenge, and I’m not sure Caruso has been very successful.

SP: The specification that [Caruso] is working with has to do with manipulating people’s feelings for retail income purposes, which is part of the aura of the mall syndrome. It’s all about manipulating every last piece of the design in a place, as opposed to letting it be more open.

On Living and Working in Pasadena

UA: Why Pasadena?

EM: We didn’t set up shop here to be Pasadena architects, as much as we love it. Obviously we like to make a positive contribution to the place we live in, but the gravitas of what needs to happen goes well beyond Pasadena.

We adore Pasadena. It’s a beautiful city. It’s a place where you can have a say in how your city is made and run. This is a place where you can have a voice. You can know your mayor and council people—you can make meaningful contribution.

SP: You cannot have urbanism in a place like Los Angeles, because it’s so far-flung and dysfunctional that you will never get planning department cooperation or executive decisions or community participation to make something like this happen.

We’ve been arguing for the longest time that Los Angeles ought to be de-organized on the basis of a borough system. It doesn’t have to break up, but it needs to be de-centralized meaningfully so that it functions meaningfully, like a Pasadena, like a Glendale, like a Riverside—like every other single municipality in Southern California that manages to find its own.

So coming to Pasadena was big for us; it’s the kind of place that could carry our ideas forth politically. And also, we felt that since there was such a huge number of architects on the West Side, all of them pursuing a view of this region that we disagreed with, it was much better for us to be working here where there is a history, a context, a meaning in the existing city.

Meridian Court, Pasadena. © Moule & Polyzoides

The roots of the city are important, and we have to be working on those roots, both to preserve and extend them. Those other architects can live and practice where they want to, trying to discombobulate this place; we can live and work in a place that is solid and important, and we can point to it clearly out our windows—and where we can be seen as being the advocates of a rooted approach.

For 20 years as partners we’ve practiced in virtual quarantine and isolation. It’s wonderful feeling. Culturally, Los Angeles has been hijacked by forces—in the universities, in the press, and elsewhere—that argue that this is a rootless place: a place that has no past, no history, no quality of place, and that every architect’s work is construction from scratch. We discarded that view of the world decades ago, and the best place to practice the alternative in peace and quiet is right here.

We like our colleagues, even the ones we disagree with—we live in a very civilized world—but this the place to argue that there is an alternative Los Angeles, of a kind that most people, most citizens care about. Our greatest strength is not with the architectural elite, but with the people who actually live in this region.

UA: What would you like to see happen right here in Pasadena?

SP: We did the last master plan for the Pasadena Civic Center [in the mid-1990s] that generated the reconstruction of the mall. Unfortunately, there has not been an updating of this plan of any significant value, but it’s something that needs to happen.

The Civic Center plan for Pasadena, which is one of the most important plans in the country—a Beaux Arts plan drawn up by Edward Bennett in the mid-1920s—simply needs to be concluded. It should be revisited. There are sites across from City Hall that beg the question of whether the city of Pasadena should have a master plan that matters.

Pasadena Civic Center Master Plan, study. © Moule & Polyzoides

EM: We were very interested in re-opening closed streets.

SP: We’re hoping to take down the bridges, to turn the one-way streets into two-way streets, to put transit in the streets, to re-do the planting of the Civic Center, to infill all the sites that are undone—it’s a major undertaking. We proposed a plaza in front of City Hall that was never built. There were many beautiful things in that plan that were never realized. I don’t think it’s seen as a priority in Pasadena.

EM: A lot of the most recent growth in Pasadena has been private-sector growth. The city needs to work through how it configures its own public buildings and the public space, which could be done right away.

SP: It’s a very important question, and it’s a question that has no end. It can be taken up in 20 year, in 50 years, in 100 years, or tomorrow morning. But it does have to do with public initiative and caring.

About nine months ago I gave a lecture in conjunction with the Pasadena General Plan process, which was beginning then. People felt they were being barraged and offended by new buildings and by congestion. So I did something very unusual: I went to the GIS [Geographic Information Systems] archives of the city; I took out all the building permits and plotted out the entire city by date built, from 1870 to 2010. It was absolutely shocking: Ninety percent plus of the entire city of Pasadena was built between 1885 and 1930.

It must have been absolutely incredible to live in the city at that time and see it getting built; it must have been just one bloody building site. And these are the most beautiful and beloved parts of the city! Every beautiful street, every beautiful bungalow, every beautiful public building—all of them were done pre-1930.

Why did we have a vernacular architecture that mattered before 1930? It has to do with how money was being spent, how people valued their time, how people were prepared to act as professionals, what people were prepared to do on behalf of other human beings, now the human beings who lived in these placed made their wishes known as to how they wanted to live, and it goes on and on.

You put eight or ten of these factors together and you have the difference between a society that’s going off the deep end, and another one that was rooted and that cared about the way we live and cared about making its presence felt and permanent.

On Their Practice

UA: What do you consider your main mission?

SP: We have done our very best over the last 20 or 30 years—despite enormous odds—to try to regenerate this world. It’s a quixotic undertaking on a level that I find difficult to sit here and explain. It has to do with changing zoning codes, with changing administrative codes, with putting the public process at the heart of everything.

It has to do with changing the way developers behave by generating new models of building, by changing street standards and transportation standards and utility standards. All these things are underway. We attacked Fannie Mae and their cohorts in Washington because they were not allowing mixed use in their dealings, so we’ve been trying to change the investment rules.

It is an incredible undertaking, but at the end of it, our only hope to have a sustainable world is to be building traditional cities: cities where people can walk or can take transit, where people can have pleasure and instruct themselves on a daily basis about how to live more generously.

Lago Mar, Republic of Panama. © Moule & Polyzoides

In ten years, the LEED [Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] process, which is to some extent an admirable process, has certified only 800 or a thousand buildings. How can we possibly generate a sustainable world if we put our money on a system that certifies a thousand buildings a decade? It’s completely absurd! It’s the culture that needs to change, and the way in which architects relate to it and generate a built place of a completely different kind from what we’ve undertaken in the last generation.

UA: You both spend quite a bit of time lecturing.

EM: There’s a huge advocacy component to what we do, and we have to stay engaged in that.

SP: We’re in the process of publishing another book, The Plazas of New Mexico, which is really an urban history of New Mexico with an emphasis on its foundation towns. We’ve been working on it for 12 years. And we’re also working on a book called Courtyard Housing Today. We’ve done 26 courtyard projects in the last ten years, of which ten are built.

Vista del Arroyo, Pasadena. © Moule & Polyzoides

The reason we’re still afloat in today’s economy is because all the various dimensions of our practice are completely overlapped. Each of them informs every other. It’s an exhilarating way of running an architecture practice. The scope of work at this office keeps us awake at night.

Liz and I are completely engaged in the work from beginning to end. One day you’re thinking about the design of door handle and the next about a regional plan for the island of Mauritius. But it’s important for architects to have this kind of perspective: the very small picture, the middle picture, and the very big picture connect into one whole. We’re very privileged to have that kind of practice.

Many thanks to Stefanos and Liz for their generous interview.

www.mparchitects.com

Post No Bills

2011-04-03T23:05:00.001-07:00

While many neighborhoods are rightly concerned about garish electronic billboards, there's another, subtler but perhaps even more insidious, type of billboard to be concerned about.

Billboards at Argyle and Franklin, Hollywood.

The Billboards

This double set of billboards appeared a few years ago at the corner of Argyle and Franklin Avenues in Hollywood. These are true old-school "bill boards," on which a seemingly random assortment of "bills" (i.e., advertisements for movies, new albums, stage acts, etc.) are pasted weekly using brushes and buckets of glue. More than one resident in this area refers to them as "blight" and many if not most would love to see them gone.

Is this a "sign" for Raffallo's Pizza?

Look closely at the verbiage above the posters. It urges passers- and drivers-by to visit a local business (Raffallo's Pizza) located in the mini-mall to which the billboards are attached. By doing so, you are told, you may enter a sweepstakes to win one of the items being advertised in the ads (movie tickets, albums, theater tickets) or "related prizes."

The Ruse

Here's the ruse: The City of Los Angeles permits businesses to erect signs on commercial property advertising their own business. By making these posters ostensible signage for Raffallo's Pizza or other on-site business, rather than advertisements for the movies and other products really being promoted, the company behind them (Culver City–based Contest Promotions LLC) appears to be attempting to skirt laws regulating commercial billboards in Los Angeles.

Contest Promotions LLC has already been in hot water in Washington, DC, where that city's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs has fined several local businesses for allowing this sort of billboard to be erected. See this story on Washington news website TBD.

Contest Promotions LLC billboard in Washington, DC. (via TBC.com)

Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, the City Attorney is aware of what seems to be an attempt to flout the law and is conducting an investigation.

An extensive list of locations where the blight can be found in Los Angeles is posted here. A complaint to the City Attorney's office about any in your neighborhood might speed up the process of their removal.

Mission accomplished

2011-02-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

I had always wanted to stay a night at the rambling Mission Inn in Riverside.

The Spanish Courtyard

I got my wish recently and spent a late night hour prowling and poking around this massive yet exuberant old pile of a hotel, which was built over the span of several decades and exhibits a variety of architectural styles and affectations, from Spanish Mission Revival to Venetian Renaissance. It is reportedly haunted.

The Chapel

I didn't see any ghosts, but the place definitely exudes the spooky aura of a Republican stronghold: Richard and Pat Nixon were married on the premises and and Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their honeymoon here. A special chair built for the visit of extra-hefty president William Howard Taft is on view in the lobby. The Presidential Suites, in a penthouse atop the chapel (above), are worth finding.

My room was the one on the left.

Don't miss the lovely open-air Rotunda, which is best viewed from topside.

The Rotunda

The east façade (not the main entrance)

There's enough here for at least a few more trips. A 75-minute tour is also available, which I won't fail to take next time.

The Italian trattoria on the northwest corner of the plaza.

www.missioninn.com

The Wright stuff

2011-02-08T22:54:00.001-08:00

I just about fell out of my chair when these two listings showed up one right after the other on Tuesday evening in my daily email blast of new listings from Coldwell Banker.*

The top listing is for Frank Lloyd Wright's La Miniatura in Pasadena, which is on the market again. Below it, in proper genealogical-chart order, is son Lloyd Wright's neo-Mayan masterpiece on Franklin Avenue in Los Feliz. Alas, I missed the Tuesday open house at the latter. Did anyone go?

The listings are here and here, respectively.

*Your results may vary, since I have my Coldwell Banker search geared to very specific parameters that include pricy looky-loos and more modest dwellings in a limited number of Los Angeles communities.

Crime of the Week

2011-02-04T01:21:00.001-08:00

Behold what three-quarters of a million dollars will get you off Laurel Canyon.

2222 Ridgemont Drive.

I should say "off upper Laurel Canyon," lest we forget in which tony neighborhood we are trespassing in search of the exquisitely hideous.

Exuding all the warmth and charm of a Tulsa trailer park, this battleship-gray beauty is listed at $749,000.

Happy weekend.

Wally Park, meet Holly Park

2011-01-29T17:01:00.000-08:00

Living just three blocks from Hollywood and Vine, I notice that on weekends club-goers park in my neighborhood and make the trek by foot down Argyle Avenue and Vine Street to the nightlife scene (some of them wearing stiletto heels).

I can't blame the kids for wanting to avoid the inevitable minimum $20 charge for lot parking at their favorite disco or club, but this situation makes resident parking in an already overcrowded neighborhood next to impossible after around 11 pm.

There's also the safety factor of 20-somethings with clutch purses and clad in scanty black skirts the size of guest towels traipsing under and around the Hollywood Freeway, where the homeless camp has recently grown to the proportions of a small Alaskan village.

Here's a much-needed solution: Holly Park.

Holly Park (proposed).

This new structure, situated at a strategic central location such as the corner of Hollywood and Vine—where, mirabile dictu, there is already an empty lot—would offer parking for much less (one would certainly hope) than the gougers at the surface lots charge.

A free shuttle service would make the circuit of eastern downtown Hollywood: Hollywood Boulevard, Vine Street, the Cahuenga nightlife corridor, Sunset Boulevard, and perhaps even Franklin Village.

The building would be as green as any such structure could be, covered in low-maintenance heat- and drought-tolerant foliage in the manner of Patrick Blanc's vertical gardens and, of course, solar-powered for a near-carbon-zero environmental footprint.

I realize that the signage is less than subtle, but once the service is known, the signs could be swapped out for something more sedate.

Just an idea.

A kindred spirit

2011-01-15T01:29:00.000-08:00

I just discovered the very engaging Houses of Hancock Park blog.

Like me, the blogger has a predilection for 1920s Hancock Park manses, refined Sycamore Avenue apartment buildings, and limestone-faced New York townhouses, as well as a negative appreciation of the gloriously ill-conceived and inappropriate monstrosities that blight the Los Angeles landscape, like the one below:

"Doors to nowhere" at 532 S. Arden Boulevard.

His street-by-street catalogue raisonée of Hancock Park houses, with critique, is commendable.

184 S. Hudson Ave.

Urbane. Stately. Sophisticated. Who would choose Beverly Hills over Hancock Park, really now?

Fabled and fabu in WeHo

2011-01-11T22:53:00.000-08:00

Today's Curbed mention of the Craigslist post for a rare townhouse apartment opening at WeHo's fabled Four Gables building, reminded me that there were a couple of even more enticing listings a few days ago for apartments in the fabu La Fontaine building, just a couple of blocks east on Franklin Avenue. (The building's actual address is on Crescent Heights Blvd.)

La Fontaine, West Hollywood

La Fontaine is also a Leland Bryant building, although in a different, turretless and more severe French Renaissance idiom. Both apartments—a 2 bedroom and a 3-bedroom—were listed at $4500 per month.

There are no interior shots of the 3-bedroom, but the 2-bedroom has a double-height living room and an oeil-de-boeuf off the dining room.

The 2-bedroom, in the building's western wing.

I'm not one to swoon at celebrity, but for those who relish such info former tenants of the building reportedly include Bette Midler, Steve Martin, Cheryl Crowe and Dane Cook.

I'm not sure these apartments are still available, but if I had that kind of dough I'd be on the phone first thing in the morning to find out.

Iconic in Long Beach

2010-12-12T23:41:00.000-08:00

I went to the Open House at the Villa Riviera on Sunday.

The event, held twice yearly, benefits the Friends of Villa Riviera, a non-profit organization devoted to maintaining the building and preserving its history. The building's website is here.

Each time I visit Long Beach, I make a point to stop for a while and gander at this stunning tower by architect Richard D. King. When it opened in 1929 as a condominium building (the tallest building in Southern California after Los Angeles City Hall), it was touted in the sales brochure that "this wonderful structure of apartment villas . . . will transcend anything of the kind on the Pacific Coast." It later served as a hotel and as naval housing during WWII; it was reconverted to condos in 1991.

Gargoyles keep watch on the battlements.

Although some of Wilshire Boulevard's modern Condo Canyon buildings may top it in space and amenities, there are few residential structures even today in Southern California that exude the commanding street presence of the Villa Riviera.

800 East Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach.

As can be seen in one of the original sales brochures, the building was originally painted aqua* in keeping with its beachfront location. Although the Pacific no longer laps the building's foundations, as it originally did, residents still have beach access. Fortunately, the color has been toned down to a lovely limestone hue.

Beachy but gaudy.

The interiors are another matter, alas. The hallways come across as dingy and in need of an overhaul, and the cheap furniture that lines them smacks of a Salvation Army thrift store shopping spree.

The HOA rehabbed the exterior two years ago at considerable expense. Its time to consider a major re-do of the interior.

Dingy hallways.

Respecting privacy, I didn't take photos in inhabited apartments (even the three that are currently for sale: listings here, here, and here), but I did come across a couple of horrifically brutalized units that were vacant and will soon be available for rent.

Shag carpeting? Cheap pressed-wood paneling? What were these owners thinking?

A ravaged bedroom in need of emergency TLC.

The views, especially from the higher floors, are stunning, and they must be even better at night. Unfortunately, the tower was not open on this tour, although it may be on some future occasion.

Views galore.

The building has a museum that holds some relics from the past, including a few verdigrised exterior ornaments and even a coat hanger from the building's glory days.

The museum.

On leaving, I had mixed emotions. Many of the residents try, naïvely and somewhat sadly, to make their apartments look as if Norma Talmadge were about to waltz through the front door. Frilly shawls are draped theatrically across uncomfortable-looking mahogany and velvet divans, as if time had stood still since the advent of the talkies.

Other owners have thoroughly modernized to point that their apartments look like any cookie-cutter box in WeHo, with furnishings from CB2. Both approaches, IMHO, are wrong, but, of course, not all the owners' apartments were open on the tour. (By far the best one open was #804; alas, the photos posted with the real estate listing do absolutely nothing to capture the true elegance and taste of this apartment.)

I'm sure the building holds many more secrets as yet unseen. Let's hope that more of the residents have given their apartments a style, polish, and glamor to match the Villa Riviera's stunning image on the Long Beach skyline.

*Update, Feb. 2, 2011:

A reader has corrected my assertion that the building was originally painted aqua (information which was passed on to visitors by the guide at the Open House). Evidently, the aqua color was only used for the sales posters; the original color, as determined by a specialist in historic buildings, was the limestone hue that the building is currently painted.

Bold and Beautiful on Carolwood Drive

2010-12-08T23:39:00.000-08:00

The January 2011 issue of Architectural Digest is out—the first edited by Margaret Russell—and it's a keeper.

The issue is getting lots of huzzahs on Curbed National, among other places, for Russell's fresh vision for what had become a terminally ossified design publication.

One of the feature stories is on a George Washington Smith–designed house (with sensitive additions by architect and G. W. Smith scholar Marc Appleton) on Carolwood Drive—the same one featured on the cover of real estate agent Jeffrey Hyland's book, The Legendary Estates of Beverly Hills.

391 Carolwood Drive, Holmby Hills (photo copyright Appleton Architects).

Although the owners are unidentified in the AD story, it doesn't take Charlie Chan to snoop out that the house is owned by Bradley and Colleen Bell. Bradley Bell was the creator, with his father, William J. Bell, of the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, and also wrote many of the episodes himself. According to Wikipedia, it's "the most-watched soap in the world." In the Czech Republic, it's simply called Fabulous and Rich. Enough said?

While Hyland's book doesn't dwell on the interiors of this house, the Architectural Digest story, written by Joseph Giovannini and beautifully photographed by Erhard Pfeiffer, does. I noticed that the walls of the garden room—like the others, designed by the always inspiring Windsor Smith—are covered with silver wallpaper decorated with gouache murals by artist Scott Waterman.

Murals by Scott Waterman.

I've been a fan of Waterman's work since discovering it via the Mrs. Blandings blog several weeks ago. A couple of examples:

Waterman also does fine art, as in these examples:

Images courtesy of ScottWaterman.com.

As if that's not enough, it also turns out that the artist is an accomplished blogger whose blog, Corbu's Cave, I had visited several times previously without making the connection.

It's a small, circular world, full of wonderment.