The High Road to Eagle Rock

Wishing to alter my route to and fro the Genevieve listing (see below), I forsook Figueroa for Avenue 64, into Pasadena, where a pair of marvelous buildings, quite nearly neighbors, rest.

Above, Church of the Angels (1889), a mouth gaping example of the Richardsonian Romanesque style, largely authored by architect Ernest Coxhead, best known for his visionary work in San Francisco. Coxhead, an Englishman, lived in Los Angeles for about three years, contributing to 25 or so projects, few of which survive.

Romantic eclectic! Were it a mansard roof, I'd call it Second Empire. Otherwise a Queen Anne-Italianate is probably the most accurate description.

Astonishingly the cornices are bare, particularly given the elaborated side brackets on the porch support columns. My guess, something's gone missing.

Stark and severe, forbidding, rivaled only by works of the Folk-Gothic or Neo-Brutal. Alienation, coolness, sangfroid, the ideological viscera dominating modernism isn't only a modernist conception beholden to the techno rapture, it's 19th century representin' on Avenue 64.

Wait, what is that on the hill? Check out the shaped parapet. Gotta go!




About the Genevieve listing, I've dropped the price to $449,000, which makes it a short sale. If one is interested, please saddle up your patience, as lenders don't always respond quickly. Still, it'd be a challenge to find a better condition house in the area for less.

Shown often by appointment, see earlier entries more more photos and description.

The Devil's in the Thingee Part 2

More criss-cross fascia boards, and you thunk it an obscure builder's folly. Not so, an obscure blog writer's folly perhaps.....



We gotcha long tips.

We gotcha teensy-weensy tips, or ends.



We gotcha walk-outs and bays, Tudor details and extra stickwork, the panoply of Craftsman expression.

Does this qualify as another example of faux joinery*? Arguably, since one piece is merely butt jointed (a technique whereby two pieces are joined simply by butting together), rather than cross-keyed, a more exacting technique exhibited in some mission furniture of the time.

*see the archive for postings on beam ends, etc.

Don't make me drop a part 3 on you fools.

E-Bay

E-bay is a great source for old house parts. Metal hardware, light fixtures, even stained glass windows are regularly listed and can sometimes be had for modest sums. Search keywords like vintage, antique, or Victorian, will regularly generate items, and many old housenicks run a battery of searches weekly. One enthusiast enters six different iterations of the keyword Handel, including misspellings.

If you bid regularly, or focus narrowly, you may develop an e-bay rivalry. One neighbor's pursuit of Carnival glass shades wrought frequent bidding wars with a username Gottahaveit43.
I routinely face a battery of rivals in my pursuit of Victorian sanitary magnificence including Plumbher, Vintageplumbing, and Sinkorswim.

Many frequent bidders use Auction Sniper, a service whereby a predetermined bid is entered seconds shy. There's a vigorish of course, typically 1% of the winning total.

Dodgy types lurk, so many buyers deal only with those sellers who've high feedback totals. In one supposed case, a bogus dealer posted photos of deluxe items taken on a house tour.

Getting outbid on one-of-a-kind articles can be a slight bummer, but nothing compared to the conferee of damaged goods. No matter the insulating properties of cardboard, stryafoam peanuts, or bubble wrap, the sickly rattle of inadequately swaddled glass, pulverized terra cotta, or severed porcelain quills, is insuperable.

Sometimes I feel a bit like a looter, raiding depressed steel towns, divesting the Piedmont South, and the architectural carcass of everyslum USA. Once, guiltily, I asked a seller in Detroit, from whence an item had come. "Palo Alto," he responded, "I had a dotcom venture in the late '90's."

Of course there's also Craig's List.......

Stick Style!

Los Angeles boasts few examples of the Stick Style (previously featured in Architectural Musings), a transitional style which links the preceding Gothic revival with the subsequent, crowd pleasing Queen Anne. That's partly a by-product of the age of L.A.'s built environment (the Stick style was largely cast aside by the 1890's), and the lukewarm popularity of the style itself, less favored than the contemporaneous Italianate and Second Empire building types.

While restoration idol Roland Souza hacks through the deferred maintenance undergrowth on his Stick re-do at 24th ST., this treasure (near Main & 23rd) warrants equal measure.

The signature touch is the siding applied in varying directions and the picket-fence pattern which forms a band at the base of the gable.

The Southland's best known Stick Style building may be the Point Fermin Lighthouse in San Pedro (1874) or the Sherman-Gilbert house (see photo left), with trademark tower in San Diego's Heritage Park.

Signs on Trees Part 2

Another installation from the writer of scripture (see Signs on Trees), banishing demons, and enlisting serpents, on a bold, red field. This posting, contrary to form, wasn't coupled with a Spanish language equivalent.

A re-sale solicitation for infant formula? Some kind of WIC/black market scheme, I'd guess.

Billings are more common along commercial corridors and are especially plentiful in the "sewing machine district" South of Washington, East of the Harbor Fwy.

I'm interested mostly in the hand-written. This creation was jacketed in Saran wrap.

Notices for plomeros, often stenciled, are frequent. Sometimes a phone number is given with the four number suffix broken in half (for example 213-733-76-58).
I asked one plumber about his marketing plan.
"Escrimas (fences), " he laughed.
"De cadena (of chain), I responded, knowing not at all how to say chain link.
"Mostly," he replied in unaccented English.

Boarding Houses

An ordinary dwelling house in Harvard Heights is being marketed as 15 bedrooms. In Pico Heights a lodging-house is shared by 35, with beds doing double-duty, sheets never sharp, as day sleepers succeed day laborers. Another property in Angelus Vista rents 22 rooms.

"Higher density is good," coo the smart growth sect. Still, is this what they had in mind? In some Los Angeles neighborhoods, hyper extended families and passels of unrelated individuals are serried into detached single family housing like passengers on the Chiyoda line.

The California Code of Regulations, which includes the 1991 Uniform Housing Code, contains residential occupancy standards. A home must have at least one room of 120 square feet. Additional rooms must be at least 70 square feet. Two people may occupy a room, and for each additional 50 square feet, so may another (occupy). The Code does not distinguish between a bedroom, living room, dining room, or kitchen. All rooms can be used for sleeping except bathrooms, hallways, closets, and stairwells.

Reads a bit loosey goosey, eh? Still some affordable housing advocates protest stricter limits, with claims of increased homelessness and market impenetrability.

Who's minding the store? I've seen sleeping arrangements in hallways, once on a staircase landing, and in closets (mostly children in large closets). Recently, I toured a property on Maple wherein four shared a bedroom with miniature doberman pinschers. Hanging from the ceiling, a heavy glass chandelier was coated with dust thick enough to resemble fur. I never discovered how many bedrooms the house contained, false walls had been built, dividing public rooms and even other bedrooms in halves and thirds. Some spaces were window less, sanctuaries for mysterious odors.

Another installation, in Harvard Heights, featured a line of damp washing in the foyer. Towels competed for hooks in perpetually humid, sweltering bathrooms. Most sport the usual kitchen living-room with an industrial range burning night and day, and its side-kick, the enormous vat of clarified pork fat to aid deep frying. Optional: the perpetual and pungent (though not always objectionable) smell of fermenting vegetables (kimchi).

END PART 1
*************************

Today's open: 2241 1/2 W. 24th ST 2 - 5 pm

Autopia

The temptation to saunter through the vast network of alleys in South Los Angeles is sometimes great. Many alleys though are gated, some shuttered permanently, repatriated by property owners (like in the West Adams Avenues), others returned almost entirely to nature, kitty corridors, unpaved (as in Vermont Square), with rampaging bamboo and vine.


Typically my longing to venture off street scares the bejesus out of frequent stroll mate Josh Berman, but it also allows a glimpse into yards where old and not so old cars, squeezed into the smallest of rinconcitos, languish, tires deflated, wheel wells filled with cobwebs and high growth.

Sometimes the vehicles function as outdoor storage lockers, hosting charcoal briquettes, clothes, or boxes of snail bait. Items are piled atop the bonnet and roof, 2 X 4's, an hibachi, sporting goods.

Others are keepsakes, reminders of youth, or aged fathers, or a time before persistent economic pressure, a last linkage, not easily abandoned.

Some owners talk about restoration, about selling for scrap or on e-bay.

It might be written this is a admirably (there's nothing peculiar about it) L.A. phenomenon. Without the ravages of harsh winter weather, these vehicles may survive long enough to be refurbished.

I'll be open today from 11 - 2 pm at 4943 Genevieve Avenue in Eagle Rock.

Market Mishegoss

Currently, we've abstention. An unintended consequence of the stimulus package, conforming and FHA loan limit increase, etc, is an extended holding pattern. Buyers, seeking optimistic economic news, the valley floor, and the magic handhold--cheaper money/cheaper jumbos, are staying put, implementations tantalizingly close, Fannie Mae the last domino to fall, further strafing an already distressed market. The hullabaloo, or the potential thereof, may be a double windfall for buyers. The lack of activity is pushing some prices still lower, toppling many sellers, undermining others, while discouraging a healthy few.

How long before the new products hit the streets, and will there be premiums or add-ons? Two to three weeks, according to some, and a few lenders are beckoning already. In the meantime, the car continues to idle, even as the tachometer builds. There's either going to be engine trouble, or a heap of burned rubber.

Schedule

For stalkers and other interested types, maybe a home buyer, I'm holding opens Sunday March 9th and Tuesday March 11th.

Sunday: 4943 Genevieve Avenue (90041) from 1 - 4 pm. Eagle Rock mid-century, Colorado Boulevard close. 2 beds, 1 bath $499K.
(Living room/dining room, pictured left)


Tuesday: 2241 and 1/2 W. 24th ST (90018)
11 am - 2:30 pm.
Pristine Pueblo Revival on a millionaires' row. 2 beds, 1 bath

(Living room pictured)

On Tuesday we're officially lowering the price on 24th to $499,000!

The Devil's in the Thingee

Twin gabled dormers with criss-cross vergeboards (or fascia boards).



Vergeboards, are also known as bargeboards, fly rafters, gable rafters, gable boards, fascia, fascia boards, and barge rafters.

It's that long piece of wood hanging from the projecting edge of the roof.


Inspired by a client's recent purchase, I sought other examples of this seemingly singular decorative riff.

Was it a one-off, the three dollar bill of bargeboards, the fancy of a visionary owner-builder?


Hardly, X marks the spot throughout high-ranking Harvard Heights and in L.L. Bowen's buff Normandie Avenue tract in King Estates.


Some are accompanied by a phalanx of brackets and others have elaborated (shaped) ends, including coves, scrolls, and slants.


Sadly, in some instances the tips have been clipped, likely victims of rot, neglect, and dreadful taste.


The word fascia also applies to a band or fillet of cloth.

You want a part 2, anybody?

2332 W. 31st ST

Clean, crisp, Craftsman in Jefferson Park

Two bedrooms, plus den and breakfast room, one bath.
Numerous system upgrades: electrical, plumbing, foundation, forced air furnace.

Original doors, windows, moldings, and built-in cabinetry.

Three rooms with beamed, decorative ceilings.

Rear yard with deck, planting beds, privacy hedges, and rapidly maturing pepper tree.

Floors of oak, maple, fir and tile (bathroom).


Price? An uninflated, but firm $589,000.00.

Shown by appointment only to architectural sympathizers, the kind-hearted, regular Joes, collectors of something vintage, blog readers, novel readers, lip readers, any old readers.

Shown by appointment to readers.

2332 W. 31st ST. (90018)

Before and Just After

The Before 1912 Craftsman. The owner wanted to pursue a new/old exterior color scheme, potentially stymied by the asbestos-cement siding (installed atop the original wooden clapboard and shingle).

Asbestos-cement is a mixture of Portland cement reinforced with asbestos fibers, first produced by Johns-Manville in 1905 as a coating, and used originally in chimneys.

The After
Experiments with asbestos, as a building material valued for its fire resistance, began as early as the 1880's; but without a binder, these long, thin, naturally occurring fibers proved too coarse and abrasive.

The cement-asbestos composite, pre-formed beginning in 1907, demonstrated incredible durability, and could be inexpensively molded (to imitate wood or other) and mass-produced.

As early as 1920, the National Board of Fire Underwriters recommended asbestos-cement shingles as a roof covering. The product enjoyed extensive use, on roofs and as siding, between 1930 and 1973, when it was banned.

Some building professionals recommend total household asbestos removal, be it ducting, siding, tiling, etc. Others are concerned only with loose or damaged materials, and contend the best and least risky management technique is to leave undisturbed.

Shingles contain non-friable asbestos, which means fibers are only released when they're broken or penetrated, a likelihood with removal.

But why not just paint? Some painters are opposed to working on a surface that cannot be prepped with traditional techniques, and might be damaged with power washing.

In the end, the guys with the haz-mat suits and proper disposal methodologies took a star turn.

Afterwards, the 2 ton-simian evicted, the building archaeologists made the rounds, noting missing aprons, gable details, and a window box.

Here's hoping for Part 2!

Sharing on a Monday

Taken a week ago in the Rockler (Pasadena) parking lot. Suitably inspired (by nature, or more probably the prospect of a close), I proceeded to buy a Jet contractor's saw. My old table saw, a rickety Skil, and a gift of "Gentleman" Jim Dugan, hadn't survived the last and lengthy rip session. I bought a roller stand as well, to help cart in and out of the garage. (I like to work beneath the Sycamore tree.) The saw comes with a Biesemeyer knock-off, the first good fence I've ever owned. That'll be a pleasure, doing without c-clamps to hold the fence in place, or adding tape to keep even from end to end. Next, I've got to clear a space in the garage and put the thing together. What'll get finished first, the house or the workshop?

Dullsville

Thursday's open at Genevieve fell flat, three hours, two agents, a jogger. How to fill the time? A little house cleaning, sudoku, sit-ups. The open house party line.
"Any traffic over there?"
"Tons."
"I'm light."
"What d'ya expect Janeiro, workin' the bush?"
"It ain't the bush, it's L.A.'s historic core."
"Whatever. Whattaya gonna do, sell to Obama supporters?"
"Hey I'm an Obama supporter."
"Figures, any real edge and you'd of voted for Paul. Anyway gotta go, Pau Gasol just walked in."

Tomorrow, I'll be back at Eagle Rock's most affordable offering ($499K), 4943 Genevieve Ave. (90041) 1-4 pm.