Architecture

#136: Villa Francesca (Palos Verdes)

#136: Villa Francesca (Palos Verdes)

January 31, 2023
Architecture
This lovely Mediterranean revival compound in Rancho Palos Verdes was the longtime home of Harry E. Benedict, one of the peninsula's early developers. Though the Great Depression prevented the completion of a planned mansion, the gate lodge and farmstead still stand as fine examples of renowned architect Gordon Kaufmann's work.
Read More
#132: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Millard House (Pasadena)

#132: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Millard House (Pasadena)

December 28, 2022
Architecture
The Millard House (aka "La Miniatura") was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright's four textile block homes in Los Angeles. It marked a radical new phase in Wright's architecture, an attempt to democratize housing by ennobling the humble concrete block as a building material. It was also a remarkable integration of site and building that still stuns a century later.
Read More
#131: Petitfils-Boos Residence (Hancock Park/Windsor Square)

#131: Petitfils-Boos Residence (Hancock Park/Windsor Square)

December 23, 2022
Architecture
The Petitfils-Boos Residence is a killer (and somewhat rare) example of the refined Italian renaissance revival style applied to a single-family home. It's also got a peculiar history involving the first proper cafeteria in LA, an abandoned chocolate shop covered in exquisite brown tiles, and a case of mansion-swapping among old friends.
Read More
#130: Jennie A. Reeve House (Greene & Greene – Long Beach)

#130: Jennie A. Reeve House (Greene & Greene – Long Beach)

December 15, 2022
Architecture
This 1904 commission in Long Beach was a significant one for architects Charles & Henry Greene, because it integrated so many of the creative features that they had experimented with but never harmonized into a single building. Their approach here pointed the way to later masterpieces like the Gamble House, Blacker House and Thorsen House.
Read More
#129: The Lummis House/”El Alisal” (Highland Park)

#129: The Lummis House/”El Alisal” (Highland Park)

December 9, 2022
Architecture
The Lummis House (aka El Alisal) in Highland Park is a playful castle-like structure of stone, cement and telephone poles (!), hand-built by one of the most colorful figures in LA history, Charles Lummis. You can appreciate it for its architectural uniqueness, or as a 3D manifestation of Lummis's philosophy. Either way, it's one of my favorite LA landmarks.
Read More
#126: Richard Neutra’s Strathmore Apartments (Westwood)

#126: Richard Neutra’s Strathmore Apartments (Westwood)

November 12, 2022
Architecture
The Strathmore Apartments are one of four complexes designed in Westwood by famed modernist architect Richard Neutra. With its unadorned white stucco walls, flat roofs and long rows of ribbon windows, the Strathmore is quintessential international style. It's also surprisingly a plant lover's paradise, and a great example of Neutra's ability to design spaces that respond to the needs of his occupants with unfussy grace.
Read More
#124: Aztec Hotel (Monrovia)

#124: Aztec Hotel (Monrovia)

October 30, 2022
Architecture
Ghosts! Hookers! Cultural appropriation! They're all part of the fascinating history of the Aztec Hotel, an eye-popping 1925 Mayan revival hotel in Monrovia (now closed) designed by the idiosyncratic architect Robert Stacy-Judd.
Read More
#123: Natural History Museum (Exposition Park)

#123: Natural History Museum (Exposition Park)

October 23, 2022
Architecture
The Natural History Museum is justifiably famous for its awe-inspiring dinosaur skeletons and taxidermied animals. But did you know it was also an art museum for 50 years? Or that Exposition Park was once a hotbed of illicit activity like drinking, gambling and...camel racing?
Read More
#120-122: Garment District High-Rises (Downtown)

#120-122: Garment District High-Rises (Downtown)

October 10, 2022
Architecture
The 1920s-era Garment Capitol Building, Textile Center Building and Maxfield Lofts each have their own thing going for them aesthetically. And they each capture a unique period in the economic and architectural development of the Garment District in downtown LA, which remains one of the city's economic engines to this day.
Read More
#112: Heinsbergen Decorating Company Building (Central LA)

#112: Heinsbergen Decorating Company Building (Central LA)

August 18, 2022
Architecture
This curious late gothic French chateau was the headquarters of the Heinsbergen Decorating Company, one of the 20th century's great mural and interior design firms. Respected architects Curlett & Beelman designed it in 1928, and built it out of bricks salvaged from buildings that were demolished to make way for LA City Hall.
Read More