#211: Washington Building (Culver City)

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 28, 1991

The diagonal crossing of Culver and Washington Boulevards in Culver City is in the running for the most New York-y intersection in LA. The off-kilter angle creates two triangular parcels, with a wedge-shaped structure on each of them, like two Flatiron Buildings sizing each other up from across the roadway. One of them is the Culver Hotel, where the actors who played the Munchkins stayed while shooting The Wizard of Oz. But don’t sleep on its trilateral companion, the Washington Building. It may not have a Hollywood pedigree, but the Washington Building’s story played a role in the early development of Culver City.

The building was commissioned by Charles E. Lindblade, a renaissance man if ever I saw one. According to the 1928-1929 edition of Who’s Who in California, Lindblade is a former “farmer, woodsman, lumberman, cattleman, car conductor, salesman of various lines, advertising solicitor, manufacturer, engineer” – just the kind of dude you want to be seated next to at a dinner party. By 1929, he’d gone white collar: he was Director of the local Security First National Bank branch, the Pacific Building and Loan Association and the Pacific Military Academy. But most importantly, Lindblade was the Vice President of the H.H. Culver Real Estate and Development Company. He and his business partner, Culver City founder Harry Culver, were responsible for much of the city’s huge growth between 1913 and the 1930s.

1922 passport photo of Julia & Charles Lindblade (public domain, via LA Street Names)

Construction on the Washington Building took place between 1926-1928 from a design by the H.H. Culver Company’s in-house architect, Arthur Scholz. Lindblade invested $30,000, a sizable sum in 1926, to build it out of earthquake-resilient reinforced concrete. It was an unusual choice in a part of town where most buildings were made of brick or wood frame and stucco. In fact there were only two other reinforced concrete buildings in downtown Culver City at the time, the Culver City Hall and the local fire station, both designed by Orville Clark (he also did the Citizen Publishing Company Building right down the street). Architectural historians figure that Clark must have consulted on the Washington Building, too.

Aside from the unusual triangular floor plan, the Washington Building takes its cues from the beaux arts school, a French style of neoclassicism that was heavily influential throughout Europe and the Americas in the late 19th and early 20th century. You get the classical proportions, the symmetry, the arched windows on the second story, the decorative friezes, the rusticated walls and pilasters (or rather an approximation of rustication, done by horizontally scoring the poured concrete).

It feels formal, but there’s also a sense that the Washington Building isn’t quite as…refined as it could be? Architectural historian Carson Anderson describes this as “builder’s beaux arts.” In other words it’s informed by the style, without conforming to the rigorous classical orders and sophisticated detailing that an architect would learn in an academic setting. Not that I’ve ever attempted sculpting a bas relief bust of George Washington, but the ones above each window bay here look like they were carved out of dried-out wax.

Washington Building - George Washington medallion

Still, it’s nice to see a 96-year-old building with its exterior design intact. The biggest difference is that they replaced some of the original wood sash of the windows with aluminum. The inside, however, has undergone waves of remodeling over the decades as tenants have moved in and out. Walls have been added, all the floor and ceiling finishes were covered or removed, and there are no original interior doors or hardware left. As of the early ‘90s when the National Register application was prepared, there was just an original mosaic floor in the lobby of the second-floor offices. Everything else had been changed.

North facade
South facade
South facade

When it was finished, Charles Lindblade made the Washington Building the headquarters for a new real estate company of his own, the Lindblade Real Estate and Development Company. But the stock market crash made things tough for new construction. In 1932 Lindblade sold his interest in the business and moved to Glendale to join a different firm.

Over the years the Washington Building has hosted a whole variety of tenants. From 1931 until 1940, it served as the Culver City Post Office. The local Draft Board was based out of here during World War II, followed by the MGM Fan Club. Dentists and attorneys had their offices here, as did a photographer, an insurance company and more. In the late ‘50s you started seeing ads in the LA Times for the Pioneer Employment Agency, with the Washington Building listed as one of its three West LA locations. As of spring 2024, there’s a Starbucks in the corner retail space, a gift shop, an architecture office upstairs, and a soon-to-open Italian restaurant called Nardò in the space where the plant-based Italian restaurant Sestina used to be.

Gil Cooper: Street scene at intersection of Washington & Culver Boulevards, 1963. Washington Building at top center. (Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, UCLA Department of Special Collections)

Even beyond its distinctive shape, what I love about the Washington Building is how it so clearly expresses the original plan for Culver City. Civil engineer P.H. Albright mapped out the new city back in 1913 as a transportation hub, taking advantage of three rail lines that passed through it, and the three important east/west thoroughfares (Washington, Culver and National Boulevards) that cut through its boundaries. The awkwardly intersecting roads that dictated the Washington Building’s wedginess were part of Culver City’s identity, according to its founders.

The Washington Building is also one of the few buildings remaining from the boom times of downtown Culver City. The original City Hall and fire station were demolished in the 1990s; this one joins the Culver Hotel, the Hull Building and the Citizen Publishing Company Building as our few reminders of what this area looked like a century ago.