Category: Development

Further to yesterday’s post on the ubiquitous two up / two down 1920s fourplex… I reached out to Sian Winslip, the president of the Society of Architectural Historians SoCal chapter. Sian kindly recommended that I take a look at Mary Ovnick’s book Los Angeles: The End of the Rainbow. The book isn’t available on Kindle, … Continue reading “Interesting book on early LA architecture”

All over LA, there are four unit apartment buildings with basically the same design: Roughly 4,000 sq ft Two units upstairs, two units downstairs Separate entrances Parking in the back for four cars They were all developed between, say, 1920-1929 (though you can sometimes find what I think of as early prototypes built in the … Continue reading “Someone please educate us about architecture”

Every day, I drive to work along Washington and then up Hoover and then Alvarado to Beverly. As I drive up Hoover, my attention is always drawn to the beautiful old Victorian and Craftsmen homes in that part of town. It’s always sad, though, because the few that remain are on horribly ugly streets surrounded … Continue reading “A disastrous HPOZ”

Curbed LA had an alarmist piece yesterday re the increasing “un-afordability” of LA apartments that I think draws attention some important long-term trends shaping the apartment business. First, here’s the money quote: “…[A] person earning median income in LA would have to spend 47 percent of that income on the median rent. That’s higher than any other city … Continue reading “How to think about the future of inner-city multifamily”