An Advertisement from 1911

What is this? Part 2

It's to repel flies. That's according to at least six of my well-informed readers. The hanging, liquid-filled zip lock creates a feeling a movement, that chastens houseflies. A couple of buyers linked to a site called straightdope for the details (www.straightdope.com).

The brick pile is vanquished, stacked neatly and subordinately against the garage. Plus arch-enemy bougainvillea has been humbled, made to fear my pruning shears. So what now? Once I finish painting the tree house, I hope to stucco the concrete block wall, so it doesn't look like, well, concrete block.
My first open at 1522 S. Hobart was well-attended and I'm planning another Sunday soiree, noon to five. Yet more images of Hobart.

School Site

A few images from my look-see around the next LAUSD school site, on Washington Blvd. at 2nd & 3rd. A group from WAHA (West Adams Heritage Association) was permitted to visit the upcoming demolition site, and earmark potentially re-usable house parts/building elements. The group was led by the godfather of Harvard Heights Eric Bronson, but also included WAHA president Jefferson Davis, and preservation contractor Steve Pallrand.

This marvelous "bungalette" will likely face the bulldozer. I like its flared or peaked (sometimes also referred to as Oriental) roof lines.

I found these photographs inside the bungalette. Who are these people, and why were their likenesses abandoned? What else has been abandoned? Feelings? Relationships? A connection to the past.

I don't like to find photographs inside doomed buildings, I like even less finding stuffed animals. For a time, I kept some discarded teddys, including a four-foot tall powder-blue bruin, in my garage. Finally I cleaned the lot and donated them to a fire-fighter charity.

Most of the windows in the condemned buildings were boarded up, primarily to deter the entry of homeless persons. The electricity was off as well, and we had to conduct our inspections with flashlights.

Despite these and other measures, the homeless were still able to gain entry. The items they needed for day-to-day life were strewn about: canned food, blankets, clothing, a bible.

At one location mail was left behind, a post or two appeared personal.


Over-ripe fruit littered one yard with a hen house and rabbit pen.









Sometimes articles aren't even considered valuable enough to cart away. A playground horsey left behind in a bungalow court.



On an unrelated note, I'll be holding 1522 S. Hobart Blvd. open tomorrow (Tuesday) from 11 to 2:30 pm. Come by and take a look!

A Structural Glass Wainscot?!

More on my newest listing:

Amongst the most astonishing and unusual features of 1522 S. Hobart Boulevard is the bathroom wainscot made of Structural Glass. Structural Glass, formerly known under such trade names as Carrara Glass, Sani Onyx (or Rox), and Vitrolite, was first produced by the Marietta Manufacturing Company in 1900. Penn-American Plate Glass Company quickly followed, producing white and black Carrara Glass, named for the white glass's resemblance to marble, starting in 1906.

The versatility and strength of structural glass, immune from warping, swelling, or crazing, contributed to its popularity, which was greatest during the "Art Deco" period. Used for both exterior and interior applications, the glass could be pigmented, cut, laminated, curved, textured, and illuminated; and, was easy to clean. (The glass was traditionally installed with an extremely fast-setting hot-melt asphalitc mastic.)

Production of pigmented structural glass in the United States ceased several years ago, and is now limited to a glass company in Bavaria; and, as such, is increasingly rare.


The Carrara-clad bathroom at 1522 S. Hobart is a wonderous asset that we hope future owners will preserve and cherish.

1522 S. Hobart Boulevard will be open Sunday from 1 - 4. Come see the bathroom, come see the whole house!

What Is This?

A bag filled with clear-liquid push-pinned to a finished header?

I've seen a lot of head-scratching stuff on the real estate circuit. I've uncovered weapons and drugs, lots of pornography. A couple of times I've stumbled onto cock fights or cock fight facilities. Family members sleeping in hallways and closets. Bomb shelters and full scale basements. Houses in which every available inch of wall space is consumed by televisions. Vegetation growing into and through the structure. Old cars mothballed for decades. Hidden passages. Animal remains.

Does anybody know what this is for? Incidentally, the house was empy.

Today's Distraction

Before wielding his chain saw, the tree terminator paused for a smoke.












Fronds plumetted, then one barrel-size cut at a time, this Washingtonia Robusta (?) was brought down from the sky.

New Listing

I've listed a postively unique Mission-Revival style residence in prime Harvard Heights (1522 S. Hobart Boulevard, corner of Hobart and Cambridge.)

Built in 1921, and befitting its Prairie School influence, the property boasts 79 windows, 2 sidelights, and three exterior multi-light doors, delivering room flooding light throughout.

More marketing hub-bub to follow, but for now a few essentials:

* 2,384 square feet
*lot size 5,401 square feet (50 x 108)
*3 bedrooms & 2 bonus rooms (den/office/study, etc)
*2 baths
*Harvard Heights HPOZ
*Mills Act contract

*$799,000

Photo above: Strong Monterrey-anticipating corbels support Pent eaves.

Egyptian Revival

After WW I, buoyed by the patriotism and traditionalism that frequently accompanies major conflict, the prevailing Craftsman architectural style was supplanted, particularly here in Los Angeles, by revival styles.

Los Angeles in the 1920's was inundated with Spanish and Mediterranean revival style buildings, and the occasional Colonial, Dutch Colonial, and Normandy or French Eclectic. Perhaps the most unusual of the revivals and likely the shortest-lived, was the Egyptian Revival style.

While Los Angeles's most heralded examples of the Egyptian Revival style are a pair of movie houses, the Vista on Sunset and the Grauman's Egyptian on Hollywood Boulevard, the style was most commonly applied to apartment buildings (see example below on Westmoreland in Harvard Heights).

The Egyptian Revival of the 1920's is generally attributed to the sensation-creating discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922 by archeologist Howard Carter. (Egyptian influences or Egyptomania had also penetrated western architecture in the early 1800's, inspired by Napoleon's expedition of Egypt.)

Most of these apartment buildings are Art Deco (sometimes the 20's Egyptian Revival is treated as a Deco subset) or Italianate forms onto which Egyptian columns (described as massive bundles of sticks tied together at the top and bottom and flared at the top) have been imposed.

Developer-builder-architect J.M. Close was responsible for this building at 737 Wilcox, as well as other Egypto-follies nearby: the Karnak apartments at 5617 La Mirada and the Ahmed apartments at 5616 Lexington. All three were built between 1925-26.




The entrance to the breezeways, through sarcophogai, is especially impressive and who would be without the faux hieroglyphics?

Another enthralling Egyptian Revival structure, the Samson Tyre and Rubber Company Building (now more popularly known at the Citadel outlet mall), was designed by the architecural firm Morgan, Walls, and Clements in 1929-30. An industrial workplace, its fortifications were modeled after the ancient walled city of Khorsabad, the fourth capital of the Kingdom of Assyria. (The Oriental Institute renewed excavations of Khorsabad, about 10 miles North of modern day Mosul in 1928.)






The Osiris apartment building, in Westlake on Union, also erected by architect J.M. Close, features a striking alternation of window size, a colonnaded frontispiece, and a pylon style facade (similar to the Grauman's courtyard). Close reporteldy also contributed to the marketing of many of his buildings, encouraging prospective buyers to "pyramid your dollars."










Osiris is the Egyptian god of life, death, and fertility.

The Egyptian Revival of late '90's Las Vegas is generally credited to brain cramp.

Project Updates

Scrapin', scrapin', and scrapin'. The brick pile didn't seem to get much smaller.

Mechanical aids? US Patent #4557246 is for a brick cleaning machine (a brick is moved by conveyor through a series of cleaning stations). Might that be a cost effective way to accelerate my project?

Ultimately, I decided to outsource.

The workman was late, naturally, but he still toiled for 5 and 1/2 hours while I chipped in for two.



Good brick pile. Good bricks. Good.


Near the bottoms of the tumble are broken bricks, too many for a single collection day. Typically on Monday mornings (the beloved garbage day!) I push my wheel-barrow up and down the block dropping 4 or 5 broken pieces into each neighbors refuse container. One neighbor has two black bins, into which my spillover waste is frequently deposited. As part of an unspoken exchange, I often wheel his trash containers to and from the curb, before and after pickup.

I'll have this brick thing licked by the summer.

Artist's Community

Recently I received an e-flyer, heralding a Nature Lover's Home in an Artist's Community. The cost? Nearly 2 million dollars.

Preposterous but shrewd, an agent that recognizes the value of the indefinite catch phrase, artist community. Who knows, maybe Cy Twombley is looking for new digs?

I'm asked often about the next arts community. Of course, LA is teeming with artists and even those that aren't, think they are--and why shouldn't they?! The city has artists everywhere. Everybody's doing something artistic.

Incidentally, I'm in the Real Estate Arts.

The SOHO Mythology

That in some discounted, under-served--though bakery/bookstore rich--part of the city, recent graduates of hoity-toity liberal arts colleges (often without visible means of support) are slumming with other "alternative types" in high-ceiling buildings with steel case windows. Where dainty, pacifist, water-colorists and bearded, Mao-suited ceramicists are communing with formerly delinquent youth anesthetized by the neo-hippie ethos and creative fervor, promising future gentrification and a killer return on the buck!

When asked about such a place I generally mutter something about 7th Street in San Pedro or the Lincoln Heights/Chinatown/Brewery nexus. But the average consumer can't handle the real truth: along the railroad tracks in Wilmington, or the Gage right-of-way, next to the all-night truck wash in Vernon, behind a methodone clinic in Compton. In East St. Louis.

Just once, I'd like a prospective buyer to ask about the next industrialist's community, law enforcement enclave, or accountant's retreat.

Classified Ads 3

March 16, 1907
One hundred years later.

More Ads

March 16, 1907

The third ad from the top offers to accept a piano, in lieu of a twenty-dollar installment.
The fourth ad promises new, cheap and handsome, at 1549 W. 23rd.
One hundred years later.

Parks 2

According to the Trust for Public Land, only 7.8% of Los Angeles's total land area is in parks, a much smaller percentage than old guard Eastern cities like Washington D.C. (19.7%), New York (19.1), Boston (17.7), and Philadelphia (12.6). Less than West Coast brethren Portland (15.5), San Francisco (19.3), and Seattle (11.2). Less than sun-belt sprawl-opolis wanna-bes San Diego (22%), Albuquerque (28.7%), Phoenix (12.7%), Jacksonville (18.2%), and San Jose (10.6%).

Admittedly, Los Angeles is credited with a higher percentage than some municipalities--Denver, Detroit, Cleveland, San Antonio, Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Tampa--stop me when I come to a burg with world class aspirations or standing.

The city of angels has had frequent opportunities to add to this total, but in pursuit of the all mighty sales tax dollar, and without the push of the hill-centric (or white suburban subdivision centric) eco-activists, promising sites like the Plant, Hollywood Park, and the Grove have instead been transformed into big box retail ghettoes. Despite several economic studies that promote the revitalizing power of parks, council persons are generally more interested in the short-term sales scape than the long-term green scape, and the re-election insuring campaign contributions that convienently accompany big development deals.

The 518, 800 square foot parcel at the intersection of Venice, San Vicente, and Pico, once the site of a fine mid-century Sears building (last occupied by Builder's Warehouse), could make a dandy, much-needed dog park. The CIM group acquired the parcel in 2003 and are now wooing large retail interests, including The Home Depot. (Never mind the OSH hardware across the street, and the Home Depot locations at Sunset & Wilton, on Wilshire near Alvarado, on Slauson near Western, Slauson & Fairfax, etc.)

Hard to get excited, eh?! We're about to use city redevelopment money to replace a tired old building supply discounter with a...tireless building supply discounter!