Arrived in LA about a week ago and have been documenting things that take my fancy as I go. Only now finding the time to get it all down on virtual paper. It's a mad old place but that's fine by me.
It would be impossible to pinpoint a specific architectural style that represents the LA look. Like the city itself, it's anything and everything you want it to be. A kaleidoscopic mishmash of Hollywood movie star gargantuan palaces, ground breaking Modernist structures, mad 1920s amusement park style diners, Spanish Colonial houses, mock Tudor mansions, the list goes on.
Sweetzer Avenue is an interesting street that runs north to south, leading up to the infamous Sunset Boulevard. The eclectic mix of design styles is rather intriguing to a British eye. Just a small snapshot of what I found on my journey up the hill....
Love this - I'd happily live here. Looks like the house has been covered in wedding cake icing and shipped in from Morocco.
This is the
Charlie Hotel - originally the home of Charlie Chaplin and regularly frequented by the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Gloria Swanson, Clark Gable et al, it's now a great little luxury hotel off the beaten track. All mock Tudor beams and suburban England coloring make it seem so at odds with it's 'glamorous' surroundings - but then that's what makes it so interesting.
This one caught my eye due to it's clean 1950s(?) lines and beautifully clipped grass verges and hedges. Kind of Stepford Wives meets Man Men. Love the steel grey walls with crisp white detail. Making a mental note: steel grey, pure white and grass green. Good mix.
You can't really ignore this one as you climb up the hill. It towers over you like an over fussy wedding cake. The El Mirador was named for its incredible views of the Los Angeles basin - designed by S. Charles Lee in 1929. It's seven stories high in a mix of Spanish Colonial Revival and Churrigueresque styles and you can't help but imagine the kind of Hollywoood goings on that must have occured in the apartments back in the day....
The final apartment block you reach before you hit Sunset is this mid-century modern mid-rise by renowned designer Frank P Schneider. Built in 1962, it's a real modernist gem, inside and out, looking as good today as it surely did back in the 60s. Would be great to be able to slip back in time and sit on one of the balconies watching the world go by in a decade that would become one of the most socially conscious and stylistically innovative in Hollywood's history.
