Historic Merritt Mansion on Former Ambassador College Campus Asking $10 Million
Even for Pasadena, a town uncommonly blessed with grand Gilded Age mansions, this listing's a real humdinger. Originally known as Villa Merritt Ollivier, the Millionaire's Row residence was built by railway/steel tycoon Hulett C. Merritt. The Italian Renaissance-style home was constructed between 1905 and 1908 at a cost of $1.1 million. Following Merritt's death in 1956, the property was purchased byAmbassador College. Now owned by developer City Ventures, Villa Merritt Olliver's most recent incarnation was as a wedding and film venue, but since February, it's been up for grabs. According to the listing (which is maddeningly stingy with interior photos), the 17,329-square-foot house has "9 bedrooms, a fully built-out basement with 6 additional rooms, two security vaults, and an underground swimming pool and locker room," but puzzlingly, only two bathrooms. That can't be right, can it? Sited on a 1.81-acre lot with stupendously lovely landscaping designed by Garrett Eckbo, the mansion hit the market three months ago with an asking price of $11 million, which has since been pruned to $9.95 million.
Expo Line Train Moving Through West LA Like It's No Big Deal
- Westwood in the background as the train heads toward Overland Avenue. Photo by Steve Hymon / The Source.
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Just last month, the first-ever Metro light rail train to hit the Westsidemade its way along the track for the very first time (it was just a test). Now that route—the Expo Line extension to Santa Monica—is in the middle of new round of tests (for signals and other electronics) to make sure that the trains are running smoothly for their eventual opening, and that means time for more trains to ride the rails, says The Source. These photos were taken near the future Westwood /Rancho Park Station, not far from the Westside Pavillion. The completed line will add seven new stops and extend from the current terminus in Culver City all the way to downtown Santa Monica. The second phase of the Expo is expected to open in the first half of next year.
Silent Film Star's Revived 1925 Spanish in Los Feliz Asks $3.5M
- Photos by Shooting LA / 4778 Bonvue
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This 1925 Spanish Colonial in the hills of Los Feliz was built for Bessie Love, a star who was made famous by silents like The Aryan and The Good Bad Man, but continued to appear in films even after the transition to talkies. (She earned her first Oscar nomination in 1929 forBroadway Melody, one of the first movies with sound, her New York Times obituary says.) The four-bedroom residence is just over 4,000 square feet and sits on around half an acre of land. The house offersvistas of the city and the hills nearby from its verandas; spacious, multi-level backyard; and saltwater pool. Inside, there's a formidable kitchen with a Viking range and marble counters, and rounded doorways. Last sold in 2001 for $705,000 ("THIS ONE IS FOR FIXER-UPPER BUFFS ONLY," the listing warned), it's now all polished up and asking $3.499 million.
Los Angeles as Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein Might've Mapped It
Mapmaking is definitely an art, but a new map created by Katie Kowalsky of the University of Wisconsin's Cartography Lab is actually made to look like fine art. Kowalsky has translated the entire world into the comic-booky style of Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, whose work is usually recognized by its thick, black lines and primary color palette (plus Ben-Day dots and thought bubbles). First seen on CityLab, the end result was a zoomable atlas of the globe that gets detailed down to the block in red, yellow, green, and blue. Check out a few of the more colorful segments of the Los Angeles portion of the map:
What the Kitchen Will Look Like in 2025, According to Ikea
All photos courtesy of Ikea
"Food as design" was one of the big trends spotted at Milan Design Week last month and, sure enough, very-busy furniture retailer Ikeadedicated a whole exhibit to Concept Kitchen 2025, a deep exploration of how the kitchen will change in the next decade. The project, a collaboration with design innovation firm Ideo and students from Lund University and the Eindhoven University of Technology, stems from a set of basic assumptions about the world in 2025, e.g. "Our homes will become physically smaller," "'Shopping' will mean 'home delivery'." Unlike "kitchen of the future" predictions from, say, the '50s, these prototypes are less about a magical convenience and more about practicality and the environment.
Drought Could Force Catalina Restaurants to Use Paper Plates
Catalina Island, like the rest of California, has been hard-hit by this years-long drought and is being forced to make major water cutbacks. But unlike so many water-guzzling areas, they've actually been goingbeyond what's already been asked of them, cutting consumption by 30 percent instead of the required 25. Regardless, their water utility, Southern California Edison, is expected to raise the island to the next, even stricter level of rationing in October (from level two to level three), which would mean, among other things, that "even the best restaurants will use paper plates to avoid washing dishes, construction projects will be put on hold, and hotels say they will be forced to close laundry services and shutter rooms," which could mean layoffs in a small community where most work multiple, tourism-dependent jobs,says the LA Times
Five Places Around Los Angeles to Get Your Kitschy Tiki Fix
This week, Tiki-Ti, the classic Los Feliz tiki bar, shocked its loyal patrons with the news that it is closing indefinitely. Fans cried into their Uga Boogas and swarmed the bar's Facebook page with well wishes. (Fortunately, it turns out that "indefinitely" only means a couple of a weeks and Los Angeles won't be losing even more of its tiki heritage.)
Southern California's love for all things Tiki began in 1934 with the opening of the Hollywood restaurant Don the Beachcomber, which featured the flaming torches, carved wooden statues, and colorful rum-based punches still essential to the genre today. As World War II servicemen returned from the South Pacific, their stories fueled the fad for Polynesian-themed kitsch, which inspired bars and even architecture throughout the late 1940s and into the '50s. And it all only grew stronger with Hawaiian statehood in 1959. Today, Tiki is primarily associated with its colorful drinks, but what's left of Tiki architecture is still compelling, often featuring steep A-frame peaked roofs, carved wooden beams, palm trees, and sometimes Googie details.
If you need your Tiki fix before Tiki-Ti reopens, here are a few haunts scattered around Los Angeles that'll get you through the next couple of weeks:
Most City of Industry Voters Paying Rock-Bottom Rents to City and Former Mayor
These city-owned houses are next to a golf course and cost between $600 and $700 a month
The tiny, San Gabriel Valley city of Industry is shaping up to be this year's Vernon. Just like formerly corrupt little Vernon, Industry has been able to offer uncommonly cheap rents to many of its 220 residents, says the Pasadena Star-News. "Eighty-six of the 97 registered voters in the City of Industry live in homes that are either owned by the municipal housing authority" or by companies under the charge of the city's former mayor (and major property owner), David Perez. Those rentals seemed to be packed with city employees or friends and family of the former mayor.
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Palos Verdes Estates Demolishing Seven Crumbling Blufftop Mansions For Open Space
Demolition is now in progress on seven city-owned blufftop mansions in Palos Verdes Estates, marking the last steps in a decades-long saga that's become "probably the most significant project that the city has undertaken in its history," the mayor of PVE tells the Daily Breeze. A 1983 landslide at Bluff Cove destroyed three houses and kicked off a series of lawsuits in which about a dozen of the ritzy homeowners charged that PVE had failed to maintain a faulty storm drain that emptied out at the base of the cliffs, and in effect was responsible for destabilizing the bluffs and damaging or destroying their houses. Once court cases and lawsuits were settled, PVE found itself owning seven houses in the oceanfront development (some people still live in neighboring houses). And they still sit in the way of a "slow-moving landslide."
Hillside House With Backyard Yurt Asks $599k in Highland Park
This laid-back, split-level house on a hilly side street in the Garvanzaarea of Highland Park has been the recipient of "well over $100,000" worth of upgrades, including brand new copper plumbing and central air conditioning. Eco-conscious features like double-paned windows and bamboo floors mingle with Caesarstone countertops and stainless steel appliances. The terraced yard holds a "yoga platform," multiple decks, and, of course, that 16-foot-wide yurt with French doors and its own bathroom. Last sold in 2012 for $430,000, the house is now listedfor $599,000.
Oops: Los Angeles Forgot to Landmark the Parker Center
The campaign to save the Parker Center—the lovely and now empty mid-century home of the LAPD—hit a slight snag last week, when the LA City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee missed a review deadline for their application to designate the 1955 Welton Becket building as a landmark. There was some confusion in the camp of Councilmember Jose Huizar, who is the committee chairman, about getting a two-week extension, says the Downtown News, and without the extra time, the date for landmarking simply came and went. The building's fate has been uncertain for years now as the city debates what to do with the site.
LA County Might Have to Start Selling Off Public Housing to Help Sustain the System
Federal funding for affordable housing is drying up like a drought lawn, and that's already having effects on the public housing system in Los Angeles. So to help generate a little extra cash, LA County's Public Housing Authority is thinking about selling off 241 units in 38 buildings, says KPCC. The proposed sale could help the housing authority out in a big way, generating about $35 million, which it could use to buy newer properties. Unfortunately, the money would only buy "about half as many units" in newer buildings. Plus, the occupants of the apartments they're considering selling would pretty much have just two options: relocate to another public housing complex or wade into LA's deeply unwelcoming rental market with a voucher in the hopes of finding an apartment within financial reach that has a landlord who takes Section 8 (or is willing to).
Mapping the 10 Most Expensive House Sales in Los Angeles So Far This Year
We spend so much time talking about how most normal people can't afford to live in Los Angeles anymore and you know what, it's totally unfair to the dozens of abnormal people who have tons of money to piss away on in-home operating rooms and several-hundred-thousand-dollar staircases. Today is their day. With data fromPropertyShark, we've mapped the 10 most expensive LA house sales of the first quarter of 2015, with a list of buyers and sellers largely dominated by hedge funders and guys who founded Beats Electronics, plus the man who lost a Senate race to Barack Obama in 2004 and plenty of mysterious LLCs and trusts. Because if there's one thing super-rich people don't want you to know, it's literally anything about how much money they have or how they made it or how they spend it. The prices start at $21.5 million and climb to $60 million.
LAUSD is Building Affordable Housing For Its Teachers
Los Angeles rents are rough for everyone (57 percent of people living here can't actually afford to do so) and keeping a roof overhead is notably hard for teachers. Their average salary only covered 8.7 percent of LA homes on the market in an analysis last year, and it looks like they're not doing much better when it comes to affording their rents. And so now the LA Unified School District is teaming up with nonprofit housing developer Adobe Communities to build a 66-unit complex in Hollywood that's aimed at LAUSD employees "who want to live near work but can't afford to pay for housing costs," saysLA Weekly.
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