The bungalow court is a style of multi-family housing that places multiple small dwellings around a central courtyard or walkway. Residents get the privacy of a single-family home, while still being part of a self-contained community, and all at a much more affordable price point than buying a house on its own plot of land. These things were hugely popular between 1910 and 1930, a time of major population growth in Los Angeles. They were especially prevalent in Pasadena, where many historians believe the form originated (or at least, was first promoted by developers and architects). 

There are still about a hundred bungalow courts left in Pasadena, 30 of which are on the National Register. I visited all 30 so you don’t have to! Here’s batch #2.

#202: Palmetto Court 📍100 Palmetto Drive

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 1983

Lots of bungalow courts were designed on the cheap with small units replicated multiple times with identical features. Not so with Palmetto Court. This collection of 14 units (12 singles and a duplex at the end) exhibits a variety of clever ways that its designers gave individuality to the units – and to the court itself. 

It starts with the structure at the entrance to the court, reminiscent of a Japanese torii that traditionally separated the realms of the sacred and the mundane at Shinto shrines. Walk through, look right and left, and you’re greeted with variations on a theme. Palmetto was built in 1915, during the heyday of craftsman architecture, and its unknown designer played around with the style’s hallmarks. Some units have clapboard siding, some have shingles, some have both; the low-pitched rooflines mix up traditional gable, shed and jerkinhead shapes. The color of the window trim changes from unit to unit, as does the fence style and landscaping – though admittedly, it’s likely the resident making those choices.

Given how distinct each unit is at Palmetto Court, it makes a lot of sense that each of them would be individually owned – at least they were as of 1983, when the NRHP nomination form was written. It would appear that’s still the case, based on the surprising number of units that have been featured on realty sites recently, some for sale and some as rentals.

…Which means we’ve got interior pictures! Check out unit 1, unit 2, unit 6 and unit 12. 

PS: I sure wish that yellowish brick wall behind the duplex wasn’t there, detracting from the human scale of Palmetto Court. But what can you do? It’s the back of a big shopping center. If you could burrow through the wall you’d end up in either a hair salon or a pho spot, depending on which duplex unit you’re burrowing from.

#203: Kosy Knook Court 📍830 Brooks Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

A white picket fence sets Kosy Knook Court apart from the street. It’s just part of the idyllic tableau here, the real suburban American dream in bungalow form. Except instead of one single-family house with a porch and a nice big lawn, there are five houses here, three small ‘uns and two big ‘uns, and they’ve got porticos instead of porches, and the biggest stretch of open lawn is out front, next to the units closest to Brooks Avenue. Let’s call it “American dream adjacent.” 

Kosy Knook emerged on the bungalow scene in 1922, designed by architect G.W. Tombleson. If you’re charmed by the idea of east coast clapboard creeping into the SoCal architect’s toolkit, you’ll find plenty to love here in these colonial cuties. There are jerkinhead gables, columns on the entry porticoes and multi-paned windows aplenty.

Originally, each of the five units was identical – and in fact the National Register application points out that there were similarly-designed units in the 1923 Pacific Ready-Cut Homes plan catalog, which certainly makes you go “hmmmm.” In 2011, a permit was issued to add on a 278-square-foot addition to each of the middle units. That same year two garages were added in back to replace the garages that had been demolished decades earlier.

Aside from those additions, these bungalows still retain much of their original styling; as of 1994 at least, they even had the same lantern-style light fixtures.

#204: Bonnie Court 📍140 S. Bonnie Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

In 1924, a prospective renter exploring the bungalow courts of Pasadena would be forgiven for confusing Bonnie Court with its colonial cousin to the west, Kosy Knook Court. Both bungalow courts involved identical units in a colonial style (Kosy Knook had 5, Bonnie 6); both had jerkinhead gables over their porticoes, with columns holding them up, and wooden clapboard sheathing on the house proper. 

But over the years, Bonnie Court’s distinguished itself by undergoing a lot of changes and additions – not enough to destroy its historic character mind you, but enough to make me squint and do a double take when comparing the 1994 photos from the NRHP application form with these photos I took in late 2023. 

The first four single-story units are pretty much as they were. On the back two, the owner tacked on a second story, and around 2005 constructed a new building just to the north, adding four condos and an underground garage to the property. I spoke with a resident who told me that the owner had wanted to tear down the court completely and rebuild, but was dissuaded by its landmark status (go CEQA review process!). Instead they built the new condo building, with some nods to the colonial revival vibe of the rest of Bonnie Court. 

Now instead of an open, gateless corridor enticing passersby to stroll down its walkway, Bonnie Court has a white entry gate and a “no trespassing” sign, and the National Register plaque mounted up top. All is right with the world. 

#205: Euclid Court 📍545 S. Euclid Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 1983

This one is easily the most transportive of this bunch. If it weren’t for the very NOW cacti planted at the entrance and potted in front of a couple units, you might believe that there was actually a wormhole somewhere near the corner of Euclid & California. That dark brown half-timbering on the exterior walls of these five structures (three of them duplexes) gives it away: you’ve been transported to Tudor-era England, where jerkinhead and standard gables co-exist peacefully, and the chimney is always a-puffing. Even if you don’t really need it, because you actually live in Los Angeles. And global warming.  

The irregular arrangement of the units, and the wending path of the walkway, give Euclid Court the sense of a miniature village awaiting discovery. There’re short walls and small patio areas made of brick, and these lovely hand-carved corbels supporting the porch canopies…so many details to get lost in. 

Check out the pictures on Zillow for some inside pics – there’s a lot of original hardwood flooring in these units, and is that a Batchelder fireplace I spy in one of those pics???

Euclid Court has a unique backstory, too. It started life elsewhere in the city as a large two-story house from 1888, covered in shingles, very much NOT a Tudor revival thing. That house was moved to the back of this lot on Euclid Avenue in 1921. It was covered in plaster and faux half-timber, four remaining structures were built in front by the architecture/building firm The Postle Company, et voilà! A Tudor-style bungalow court. 

AND: as of late April 2024, this entire bungalow court is for sale by its owner (a real estate broker), for the first time since 2000. A few of the units are vacant, including the large four-bedroom, two-bath house at the back. Haven’t you always wanted to own a wormhole? Of course you have. 

#206: Washington Court 📍475 E. Washington Boulevard

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

Here we have a rare example of a “half court,” in which five of the six bungalows are arranged on the west side of the walkway, with the last one acting as a stopper at the far north end. The walkway is almost entirely canopied by trees; when I visited in late fall, they had left a trail of yellow leaves on the ground. Some were collected in the birdbath placed halfway down the walkway. 

You might aptly call these bungalows “cottages” – there’s just a touch of hobbit-like whimsy to the entryways, with their arched portico openings and the flared roofline that covers them. I didn’t notice this until later, but each unit has a five-sided louver on the front gable (assumedly to allow air to circulate in an attic space), and it’s surrounded by the same wide wood trim as the windows. It’s the little details like that help Washington Court stand out. 

We don’t know who designed and built this, though we know it was finished in 1924, cost $2250 per residence and was first owned by one F. R. Finch. This is one of the narrower lots I’ve seen for a bungalow court, just 60 feet wide, and the east side is hemmed in by trees and hedges, which make it feel even narrower. But that just adds to the feeling that you’re entering a private world as you stroll down the leaf-littered lane. 

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ Anderton, Frances: Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles (Angel City Press, 2022)

+ VIDEO: “Bungalow Courts: LA’s Best Housing No One Builds Anymore” (@metamodernism on YouTube, Mar 1, 2024)

+ “Bungalow Courts in Pasadena” (Pasadena Planning & Community Development Department)

+ Euclid Court’s NRHP nomination form

+ Gish, Todd Douglas: “Bungalow Court Housing in Los Angeles, 1900-1930: Top-down Innovation? Or Bottom-up Reform?” (Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4, Winter 2009-2010)

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Bonnie Court’s NRHP nomination form

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Kosy Knook Court’s NRHP nomination form

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Washington Court’s NRHP nomination form

+ Palmetto Court’s NRHP nomination form+ Sicha, Richard J., Pasadena Heritage: Bungalow Courts of Pasadena NRHP nomination form