Etan Does LA is celebrating National Library Week by visiting LA’s historic libraries on the National Register of Historic Places.

This beautiful Mediterranean/Spanish colonial revival library from 1927 fits right in with Hancock Park’s tony, tasteful homes

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 19, 1987

The John C. Fremont Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library is my favorite kind of public building: simple and elegant, with just enough detailing to give it some personality, but not so much that it feels like a showpiece more than functional architecture. Fancy columns supporting the circular portico out front add some Mediterranean grandeur; the delicate wrought iron on the window grilles and railings lend a hint of Spanish colonial delicacy. Here, an off-white stucco exterior is a canvas for eye-popping color contrasts: the green of the dwarf palms and bright red of the bottlebrush; the pale orange of the Spanish tile rimming the roof, and the textured brown wood of the front doors. It’s a visual feast, but a subtle one. 

Not every LAPL library branch harmonizes this well with its surrounding neighborhood. The fact that such a tasteful building fits in so perfectly with the other homes in Hancock Park tells you as much about architect Merl I. Barker’s great taste as it does about the toniness of this borough in the 1920s, just as it was developing. 

It’s easy to get lost in the little details of this library. Like the high, heavy wood-beamed ceiling above the main stacks, reminiscent of both a mission and a ship. The decorative rings that cover the smaller windows, casting shifting patterns as the light pours through. Or the way that the indoor section signage is hung from black metal brackets – who does that anymore (and why don’t they)?  

Okay, enough about the design of this thing, I could go on forever. The Fremont Branch evolved out of the “Colegrove Station,” a reading room opened at Vine St. and Santa Monica Blvd. in 1912. It was later upgraded from a library “station” to a sub-branch of the Hollywood Branch library, and then moved to a bungalow on the grounds of the Vine Street School in 1923. For a couple years the bungalow was renamed the Santa Monica Boulevard Branch Library, and moved to a temporary location at the corner of Melrose and Seward St., in anticipation of a permanent home. 

It was during this phase, in 1925, that the Board of Library Commissioners opted to name the library after John C. Fremont. If you are at all interested in the history of Los Angeles, you should know this man, one of the more fascinating figures in the history of LA and California. He lived many lives, and at various points was an explorer and a war hero (albeit a court-martialed one), a US Senator and a rich landowner, an abolitionist and a murderer of Native Americans. Fremont will forever be a controversial figure, but he did sign the Treaty of Cahuenga on behalf of Americans in 1847, effectively ending the Mexican-American War and clearing the path for California to become a territory of the US. So thanks for that John, here’s a library named after ya. Plenty of rich white men with their names on fancy libraries have done far less. 

When voters passed a $500,000 bond measure in 1925 to expand the LAPL’s reach into new neighborhoods, the John C. Fremont branch was one of the 14 branches that were built in a 1.5 year span (also part of that group were the Richard Henry Dana Branch, visit #85 and the Wilshire Branch, visit #89). I’ve read that when it opened in June of 1927, there was no furniture for the first week. But there were books, walls and a floor – more than enough for a makeshift reading nook. 

Like many of the original LAPL branches, the Fremont branch went through seismic upgrades in the ‘90s, after the Whittier Narrows earthquake yielded some safety code updates. A new room and a parking lot were added, A/C and internet access, and increased accessibility for disabled folks. I’ll admit it’s a bummer that the dramatic front entrance on Melrose, with its circular portico, is no longer a working entrance. But on the plus side, the new entrance on the north side is surrounded by an outdoor courtyard, with some cool free-standing tiled sculptures by artist Barbara Field, in the shape of various punctuation marks. You can sit on a question mark or set of parentheses and read or eat or gab, and marvel at the subtle beauty of this library. And stare at that righteous purple “Book Drop” sign, hanging from a black metal bracket from the wall, like all the signage inside. Like I said, who does that anymore (and why don’t they)? 

Recommended Reading

+John C. Fremont Branch’s NRHP nomination form

+A Brief John C. Fremont Branch Library History (LAPL)

+Hand Book of the Branch Libraries (Los Angeles Public Library, 1928) (PDF)