VOICES-Is the preservation of historic properties important to the people of Los Angeles and those who represent us? Should taxpayer funds be used to demolish historic buildings?
Coming from a German city that preserved its historic structures, almost destroyed during WWII, it is mindboggling to me that the City of Los Angeles would allow buildings in Hollywood with great architectural value to be demolished. And to top it off: Making the Taxpayers pay to bulldoze them down!
On Thursday, March 20 at 10 AM, the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission is scheduled to vote on whether to grant Historic-Cultural Monument status to the A. L. Ehrbar residence at 1601 N. Hobart Blvd. in Hollywood, which is an extremely rare and virtually intact example of a Santa Fe Adobe style home designed in 1920 by acclaimed architect Harwood Hewitt, winner of the 1925 world prize for residential architecture.
Thursday’s Commission vote is crucial for the cause of preservation in Los Angeles because a vote to deny landmark status likely means that the people of Los Angeles will be footing the bill to bulldoze this architectural gem: The Ehrbar residence is slated to be razed for a taxpayer funded, 51-unit housing project by the Hollywood Community Housing Corporation, which in 2010 received $5.027 million from the former Community Redevelopment Agency in order to purchase the multi-parcel property that includes both the Ehrbar residence and several other apartment buildings on the site dating from the 1920s to the 1950s. In their place, Hollywood Community Housing Corporation’s intends to construct a modern-style, 4-story building called the Coronel Apartments.
In a 1979 official survey of historic Hollywood properties for the City of Los Angeles, the Ehrbar residence was identified as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. This 1979 assessment characterized the property as “built in the Pueblo Indian-Spanish style” and, describing its rarity, stated that “there were a few homes built in this style in Hollywood in the Twenties; very few remain.”
In 1922, the Ehrbar residence was featured by the Southern California Chapter of the American Institute of Architects as a home of distinction in its supplement to California Southland Magazine. The residence was also featured prominently in advertisements of the era, particularly to promote luxury home fixtures.
Despite being 94 years old, the Ehrbar residence has retained a remarkable degree of integrity: its kitchen cabinetry and tile work are all original, as is the bathtub and bathroom tile, the built-in cabinets and stained ceiling paneling, the arched doorways and doors, the “wagon-wheel” chandeliers, ceiling beams and stained wainscoting, and all but two of the exterior arched windows.
Yet when Hollywood Community Housing Corporation initially sought CRA funding for its project, the developer provided the CRA with no historic review or acknowledgement of the Ehrbar residence.
This “omission” was particularly egregious because Section 511 of the Hollywood Redevelopment Plan requires the preservation of structures of historical significance when taxpayer funding is involved. When community outcry over the omission forced Hollywood Community Housing Corporation to prepare a full Environmental Impact Report, they still refused to include a preservation alternative to the proposed project, steadfastly claiming that the property has no historical significance and that its demolition would therefore result in no impacts to historic resources.
In the fall of 2013, after the release of the Project’s Environmental Impact Report, Hollywood Community Housing Corporation quietly sought federal tax funds for its project. This request triggered what is known as a “Section 106 Review,” a historical assessment of the project site for the Los Angeles Housing Department.
The conclusion of this independent assessment by the firm ICF International (formerly Jones & Stokes) confirmed that the Ehrbar residence qualifies to be on the National Register of Historic Places and therefore must be retained within Hollywood Community Housing Corporation’s project.
Despite this conclusion, and in spite of demands for retention of the residence by preservation organizations Los Angeles Conservancy and Hollywood Heritage, Hollywood Community Housing Corporation still insists that the Ehrbar house has no historic significance whatsoever and will be demolished.
In response to the Historic-Cultural Monument nomination of the Ehrbar residence by concerned members of the community, Hollywood Community Housing Corporation retained an attorney and refused to allow members of the Cultural Heritage Commission and its staff access to the home’s interior. If experience is any indication, such gamesmanship and deception will likely pay off with Commission members voting against the nomination. If so, not only will Hollywood lose yet another piece of its once diverse architectural history, but it will all be paid for with the public’s dime.
The time has come for Los Angeles to take a lesson from Europe on how to preserve its architectural heritage.
(Ziggy Kruse is an activist and reporter for www.HNN-TV.com. She is also a former Board Member of the Hollywood Studio District Neighborhood Council. Ziggy can be reached at [email protected]. Ms. Kruse views are her own and do not reflect opinions of either the staff or management of CityWatch.)
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 23
Pub: Mar 18, 2014
