Hollywood Archives - Etan Does LA

#187: Aloha Apartments (Hollywood)

January 8, 2024

The Aloha Apartments were built in 1928 as a hybrid apartment building/hotel. There were a few starlets that lived here, but most of the Aloha’s tenants were middle-class professionals. It's a great example of how the housing market was changing to meet the needs of all the different kinds of people flowing into Hollywood during the 1920s and ‘30s.

#178: Hollywood Forever Cemetery (Hollywood)

October 31, 2023

Pioneers & Settlers

Hollywood Forever cemetery is the final resting place of countless entertainers, and many of LA's all-time most important citizens. But its significance extends way beyond who was buried there.

#174: Lasky-Demille Barn (Hollywood)

October 5, 2023

Entertainment

The Lasky-DeMille Barn is the earliest surviving structure from the beginnings of the Hollywood movie biz, and the place where the first feature-length Hollywood film (The Squaw Man) was shot. And its significance extends both before and after that. The barn was connected to some of the pioneering citizens of Hollywood, and in its current reuse as the Hollywood Heritage Museum, it serves as a cultural citadel, safeguarding Hollywood's history.

#144: Halifax Apartments (Hollywood)

March 23, 2023

Architecture

The Halifax Apartments were constructed in 1923 to help address the influx of emigrants attracted to the exploding film industry. It's on the NRHP as a dignified Italian renaissance revival design by Walker & Eisen. But way more interesting is the story of its builder: Leach Cross, a Jewish dentist who moonlit as a mediocre boxer and eventually turned to real estate. And then the restaurant biz. And then back to dentistry and boxing.

Five Historic Houses That Even Your Kids Will Love

December 12, 2022

Architecture

LA is full of cool-ass old buildings that offer plenty for both architecture buffs and the young' uns. Here's my "trail" guide to historic LA houses kids will love.

#96: Old Fire Station No. 27 (Hollywood)

May 4, 2022

City Planning

Once the largest fire station west of the Mississippi, Old Fire Station No. 27 protected the residents and film studios of Hollywood for six decades. It now preserves LAFD history as a firefighters museum.

#95: Villa Bonita (Hollywood)

April 24, 2022

Architecture

This 1929 apartment complex once housed Errol Flynn and Francis Ford Coppola. It distinguishes itself from the many Whitley Heights high-rises by the spectacular vines that wrap around it, as if mama nature herself designed the facade.

#82: Highland-Camrose Bungalow Village (Hollywood)

March 23, 2022

Architecture

A cluster of craftsman bungalows built in the 1910s-1920s just south of the Hollywood Bowl and surrounded by mature trees. There's nothing quite like it in Los Angeles.

#79: El Cabrillo Apartments (Nina & Arthur Zwebell – Hollywood)

March 10, 2022

Architecture

Built in 1928 for famed filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, El Cabrillo is a sterling Spanish colonial revival apartment complex by the undisputed LA masters of the form, Nina & Arthur Zwebell

#78: Hollywood Studio Club

March 8, 2022

Architecture

Architect Julia Morgan designed this 1926 building for the Hollywood Studio Club, a one-time home of Marilyn Monroe, Rita Moreno, Kim Novak, Barbara Eden and nearly 10,000 women seeking employment in the film industry

#68: Montecito Apartments (Hollywood)

January 30, 2022

Architecture

Standing tall in Hollywood since 1931, this art deco high-rise once housed Gene Hackman, Montgomery Clift, Mickey Rooney and Ronald Reagan

#66: Hollywood Argyle Apartments (Hollywood)

January 23, 2022

Architecture

While this 1920s Hollywood apartment building is anything but glamorous, its story says a lot about the development of Hollywood over the past century.

#33: Colonial House (Hollywood)

November 9, 2021

Architecture

West Hollywood apartment tower with a storied actor clientele, by architect-to-the-stars Leland Bryant https://youtu.be/DkHcn7vTfe8 Added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 15, 1982 Got $5500 a month[…]

#30-32: Zwebell Courtyard Apartments (Hollywood)

November 8, 2021

Architecture

A trio of fanciful, Spanish-influenced courtyard apartments designed in the '20s by the untrained husband-and-wife duo Arthur & Nina Zwebell Celebrating my return to the office for the first[…]