Right: Diana
Payne, an astrologer and tenant in one of the targeted
buildings, favors "the tempo and the humanity"
of neighborhood .
(Al Seib / LAT)
March 6, 2003
Historical Preservation
SURROUNDINGS / WESTWOOD
Built With Middle-Class People in Mind
Los Angeles Times
March 6, 2003
|
The owner of three 1930s buildings
wants to tear them down; residents are trying to block
the move. Right: Diana
Payne, an astrologer and tenant in one of the targeted
buildings, favors "the tempo and the humanity"
of neighborhood . |
|
By Bob Pool, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2003
To experience the Westside of Los Angeles from a gentler time,
pull off busy Santa Monica Boulevard and take a drive down Kelton
Avenue. One side of the 1800 block is lined with graceful early
1930s duplex and triplex apartments. They were built for
Westwood's original developer in an experiment to create a
premier middle-class neighborhood for Depression-era Los Angeles.
But you'd better hurry. A new developer plans to bulldoze three
of the Spanish courtyard-style buildings in the middle of the
block where pioneering subdivider Harold Janss worked to bring
culture and class to the workingman.
Residents of Kelton Avenue appealed Wednesday to Los Angeles
officials to designate the three buildings cultural landmarks.
The locals hope to stall demolition long enough to find a way to
permanently preserve the block. The Cultural Heritage Commission
agreed, recommending that the City Council confer "monument
status" on the buildings at 1851, 1845 and 1841 Kelton Ave.
The action delays demolition for 180 days; council ratification
would add an additional 180-day tear-down moratorium.
Westside Councilman Jack Weiss supports the preservation.
"You don't have to look too far to get a sense of before and
after," he said, referring to newer and boxier four-story
townhouses built elsewhere on the street. "It's really warm
and touching to see people living today the way people did a
couple of generations ago. This is what's vibrant and special
about the Westside."
Michael Cohanzad's family-run company bought the three apartment
buildings last fall and intends to construct a four-story
condominium project there. He disputed the notion that the
apartments are either historic or culturally significant. In any
event, "there are other blocks that better show what Janss
wanted to do" with affordable Westside apartment
development, Cohanzad told commissioners.
These days, the logo of Janss Investment Co. remains visible
where it was stamped 77 years ago into the concrete sidewalk in
front of the apartments. But the imprint of the Janss family on
Los Angeles is even wider and deeper. Family patriarch Dr. Peter
Janss arrived in Los Angeles in 1893 to practice medicine. But by
1906, he had discovered there was more money in property than in
pills and he established the investment company with sons Edwin
Janss Sr. and Harold Janss.
The three began subdividing with Belvedere Gardens in Boyle
Heights, luring buyers with purchase plans as low as $5 down and
$5 a month. Ramona Acres in Monterey Park and a 3,500-acre orange
grove in what was to become Yorba Linda, followed. Other Janss
subdivisions soon took root in Van Nuys and Canoga Park and,
later, on a 10,000-acre ranch that eventually became part of
Thousand Oaks. The Janss family's most important development was
on the Westside,
however.
In 1911, Harold Janss married the daughter of Broadway Department
Store founder Arthur Letts. That union guaranteed that Janss
Investment had the inside track a few years later to buy 3,300
acres owned by Letts family in what is now Westwood. Edwin Janss
Sr. worked hard to convince University of California regents to
build a new Los Angeles university on a piece of the property. At
one point he arranged with a local chauffeur service to have
Janss employees pose as drivers for regents as they toured other
potential university sites in Pasadena, Burbank, Palos Verdes and
Fullerton. The "drivers" eavesdropped on the regents
discussing the pros and cons of the rival locations, giving Janss
officials the upper hand in Westwood negotiations. A complicated
deal to transfer the property to the state soon followed.
Janss Investment sold 375 acres to the cities of Los Angeles,
Santa Monica and Beverly Hills in 1925 at the bargain price of
$1.2 million — about a quarter of its value. The cities,
whose voters had passed bond issues to pay for the site, turned
around and donated it to the state. While the UCLA campus was
being built, Janss Investment went to work developing the
Westwood Village commercial area and surrounding residential
neighborhoods.
Although the wealthy Letts had envisioned large luxury estates
for the northern tracts of Holmby Hills and Holmby Estates,
Harold Janss was determined to build housing for Los Angeles'
growing middle class, too. He launched Westwood Hills — an
area south of the campus — as a neighborhood of affordable
houses and rental units. Lots sold for $800 near the intersection
of Westwood and Pico boulevards,where the first subdivision was
started. Starting in 1926, Kelton Avenue was one of the first to
be developed. Over the next decade, blocks of Spanish, Moorish
and Mediterranean-motif homes and apartments were constructed.
Builders developing Janss lots hired some of Los Angeles'
brightest young architects to do design workthat was both stylish
and economical.Allen G. Siple, who went on to design the original
Beverly Hills Police Department building, elegant Trousdale
Estates residences and portions of the Webb School in Claremont,
drew up the plans for the garden-courtyard building at 1841
Kelton Ave.
Siple died in 1972. His daughter, Los Angeles writer and
nutritionist Molly Siple, said she cried when she learned that
1841 Kelton and the two buildings south of it were to be
demolished."You can see the whimsy and playfulness" of
the "first expressions of a budding architect fresh out of
USC architectural school" in her father's Kelton Avenue
building, she said. Those who live there now said they appreciate
its wood-beam ceilings, its campanile-like front porch and its
lush garden overflowing with camellia,bougainvillea and bird of
paradise they claim were transplanted from Janss' own
greenhouses. "I won't live here forever. But I believe it's
important for Los Angeles
as a city to keep its history," said Sharon Eisenberg, a
publicist who is a tenant. "The few buildings like this that
survive need to be kept for historic legacy's sake."
Kia McInerny, a lawyer and wine writer who owns a neighboring
duplex, said she refused to sell to Cohanzad when he came
knocking. She said all of the apartments on the block are viable
rental-income properties. "We've offered to find buyers who
would preserve them," she said of the three that Cohanzad
plans to replace. Those testifying Wednesday in support of the
preservation said that photos of the Kelton apartments are used
in at least one architectural school as examples of how Janss
subdivisions were designed to provide "consistency without
monotony."
But Jeanette McKenna, a cultural resources expert from Whittier
hired by Cohanzad to study the Kelton Avenue buildings, suggested
that Los Angeles is loaded with similar apartments. "Not to
say that they aren't attractive," but "very generic
materials were used in their construction," McKenna said of
the Kelton buildings. "And it's a very generic design."
In other words, Janss' subdivision was perfect for the
workingman.
Application for Historic Monument Status
The Cultural Heritage Commission Review Process
Arguments that a Developer May Make Against Historical Preservation
Next Steps After Properties Have Been Designated Historical Monuments
How Can I Help Save The Historic Kelton Homes?
We Are Looking For Buyers For The Historic Kelton Homes
Email the Kelton Avenue Ad Hoc Committee
