Bemoan, Bemoan Part 2

(See Bemoan, Bemoan Part 1, 6/27/2009)

Frustration, backpacking through the urban thorn, flag bearing for architectural preservation. So many buildings altered in ways I find deplorable.

Yet I hate these notions: the superior eye, the fecundity of artists--the elites, raised in a monastery of beautiful things, cultivating greater sensitivities.

Typically, I try to recognize competing cultural mandates, and the by-products of resourcelessness.  Still my non-judgemental cover bloweth, mainly to vociferate: 'how could one think X is preferable to Y'?

Can people really not see the difference(s)?  The envelope 

please......and the answer is...YES and NO.  People can see the difference, and the difference is of little value.   Utility is paramount.  

House as utility, as vessel.  How many can it shelter, bathe and feed?    

Bemoan, Bemoan Part 1

The topic to which I'm probably most continuously drawn (no doubt to the consternation of my forgiving readers), are those forces occasioning alterations in the housing stock of inner core neighborhoods.

Cultural signifiers, the makeover phenomenon, and the ego-imprimatur impulse have all been referenced, sociology, economics, cultural transmission, and memetics, as well.

I've largely resisted imprecations, and a fruitless, villainizing impulse.  Still, I'm hard-pressed to understand how anyone, anywhere, for whatever reason, would think to transform, for example, image top to image middle.

Avoid opining about aesthetics, I'm often cautioned, matters of taste are dissevering, unfixed,  and coupled with elitism.   Does taste play a role, is there such thing as "good taste" or is it all "different taste"?

Turtles

Sometimes when houses of wood are stuccoed, features above the roofline escape cement internment.

Are these mostly small dormers overlooked (since they are seldom accosted by changes of fenestration), or might their exclusion be a cost savings move?  Is 'The Dormer' beneath notice or viewed benignly?  

Like the head of a turtle emerging from its cartilaginous shell, the tactile difference is conspicuous, even when masked by common color, like this example wherein the beta gable has been left unmolested, er, shingled.

Whilst I tend to get a bit peppery when confronted by detail diminishing alterations, perhaps I should be grateful for these vestiges, restoration road maps of a sort, Sirens for the aesthete.

Adaptive Abuse/Facade-ectomy (Part 1)

Building Reuse or Adaptive Reuse is the process of adapting buildings to new primary uses whilst retaining historic or significant features. Valued for its economic, social, and environmental advantages, examples include Santa Monica's Bergamot Station (train yard turned art galleries), and downtown's many loft conversions. Previously, I featured a spectacular Shingle Style house in Highland Park, the Ziegler Estate, reborn as La Casita Verde, a day care and pre-school (see Shingle Style 7/26/2008 ).

Adaptive reuse can help preserve buildings, and maintain a valued heritage; however, not all re-purposing exhibits sympathetic handling. Often structures are altered irreversibly and in uncomprehending fashion. Whereas the Ziegler Estate survives mostly intact, two other Shingle Style gems have been unforgivingly converted into restaurants. The Davis house (built in 1897) hosts a generally mediocre eatery, the 2-9 Cafe, near USC (top image); while, La Parilla in Westlake mars a magnificent form.

The most controversial practice in preservation however, is the facade-ectomy.

(To be continued)

May I Introduce Oxford Square

United Neighborhoods Neighborhood Council (UNNC) banners rose recently, along the avenues and boulevards that bound many West Adams neighborhoods. A neighborhood name appears against a field of red-orange above the UNNC icon, a broad, sheltering tree.

Elsewhere the fledgling Oxford Square-rs unveiled bold signs, a neighborhood coat of arms, helping define their house beautiful district North of Victoria Circle and South of Windsor Village. (North of Pico, South of Olympic, West of Crenshaw.)

Place naming and recognition can help foster a sense of community, often the basis for collective action, even social participation. Bravo Oxford Square!

Defining a District

"Have you seen the new signs," asked the Harvard Heights mob challengingly.
I hadn't, and I tried to redirect, "No, but I sure like what Adams-Normandie did."
The H.H.-ers, young and brimming with Obama-made confidence were in no mood, "cut the crap Janeiro--pay your respects."

Jeez, I intoned, don't they realize I spend days shuffling from one historic district to the next, past all manner of markers and Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired displays?

Historic districts are typically areas of contiguous, concentrated cultural resource. Distinct signage can often help advertise and inform, while reinforcing ownership and an idea of place.

The most "successful" districts are often compact, aided by distinctive geographic features or barriers that interrupt continuity, like a small hill (Melrose Hill, Angelino Heights) or an uncharacteristic grid (Victoria Park, Alvarado Terrace). The Harvard Heights neighborhood boasts some of those attributes, ringed by high traffic streets, and bordered on the East by a cemetery, a large private school campus and the city's most important Greek Orthodox church.

The new signs are playful, yet meaningful, without resorting to tired imagery or cliche font. Bravo!

Separated at Built

Located on Vermont Boulevard, and once moved to accommodate the construction of the neighboring Ralph's supermarket, this Eclectic, Dutch-Romanesque with its sprightly paint job, arched windows and daring trim has long been an eye-catcher along a mostly commercial stretch.

I've written previously about copy cats and slight variations, house plan books and the preservation value of duplicates (see Nightwalking Part 2/1620 Oak 6-26-2007), but seldom is there a match for something so unique.

The book end (albeit with the entry flipped) resides a mile away near Jefferson & Grand. Same passionate symmetry, same fleur-de-lis details (note the bands above and below the second story course), a remarkable survivor similarly encroached by non-residential uses.

Not So Smart Buildings (Part 1)?

Many have railed against the "dumbing-down" of America. In popular versions of the argument, educational reform, narrow casting, and poppycock mysticism are faulted, while the built environment garners little mention. Yet we increasingly occupy, emulate, and sanction buildings with little complexity or singularity, and our renovation culture often obliterates delicacy and nuance. But are those buildings and tendencies "dumb-ing," or rather minimal and pragmatic, a justified expression of time and place? Am I equating simplicity with stupidity, and is this the snotty bias of my inner critic?

For starters, great, form challenging, expressive works are still executed (such as Gehry's Disney Hall). A few of the ultra wealthy commission residences of great ambition, and here and there, low-budget whimsies charm (see the Swiss Cheese apartments). Nor is this an attack on the International Style and the expulsion of detail. But in my opinion, the track house de jour among others is a sorry hand me down from yesteryear's creative clutch.

The defenders of the neo-bland will cite the democratization of building (or some such claprap), the cost impracticality of quality materials and specialized labor, as well as different programming demands (like the attached garage).

Certainly the lens of time better allows us to assess buildings. That historical diaphragm may now enable us to view less prejudicially the 1970's: the skyscrapingest skyscrapers, late brutalist works, the shed aesthetic, dingbats; and, recognize lots of wonderful stuff....and lots of dreck. Lots of dreck that we're likely stuck with, littering our sightlines, thoroughly un enlivening architecture (that sadly often displaced more idiosyncratic structures), like blank canvases at a gallery. And things didn't get better in the 1980's, or '90's.

Maybe I'm still recovering from grad school at CalArts (in Valencia), surrounded by miles of neo Mediterranean eclectics, monuments to mass building efficiencies, and developer profit rather than design thoughtfulness, with elements crudely applied--not as post-modern kitsch, or even deliberately false historicism; but, rather as a degenerate set of mannerisms.

End of Part One

The Thin Grey Line

Seldom are architectural alterations or improvements comprehensively chronicled. Building and safety permits may document some changes, but mostly the house archaeologist is forced to analyze style clues and discontinuities.

Concrete may be the great exception amongst materials. Driveways, pads, and patios, steps, curbs and porches, even foundations sometimes feature elucidating inscriptions. Many are likely the work of untamed youth, but other imprints are clearly for the record, almost formal.

Because projects are often conjunctive, these inscriptions can help pinpoint other ventures. A backyard pad, for example, might coincide with the installation of french doors. A "wet patch," or a section of concrete repair, might accompany plumbing work. A garage needs a driveway.

The Winchester Mystery Hovel

I look at 15 - 30 houses a week on average. Most with buyers, some on caravans or other opens, a few alone. What I'm seeing depends largely on my stable of buyers, their preferred neighborhoods, price ranges, and features.

I don't often take pictures unless I'm "previewing", or for later review. But occasionally, I record oddities, exceptional features, weird shit.

At least twice a year, I encounter a residence with a chain of additions, each linked to a next; often, cottages distended to fill deep lots, sometimes consuming formerly detached garages.

A few of these rambling wrecks appear to have been built of surplus building materials. As rooflines are butted or foundations joined, ceiling heights change, and some spaces appear sunken as raised foundations drop to slabs. Exterior doors lead to closed spaces, windows act as pass-thrus.

(Please note, the image to the left is not a camera reverse of image one as evidenced by the window position, this despite the checkered floor, another arch and sliding door.)

Attic conversions and even basement digouts occur too, but far less often, likely because their engineering is more daunting and expensive.

Neo Craftsman

I've been a tad leery of new housing built in the Craftsman style. New-builds should say something about their time, I argued, not just ape the time honored. However a great many styles, Tudor, Italianate, Chateauesqe, are revival styles, and their periodic re-engagements, re-popularizations, or continuities are germane and revealing.

What do I expect?! Architectural paradigm shifts are uncommon, relying on the shared destination of technology, economics, and socio-politics, a hugely influential practitioner (like a Louis Sullivan or an H.H. Richardson), and an international cultural/political event (like the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago or World War II). (Attention true modernists, a perfect storm is centered in Dubai and Beijing.)

Maybe it's a good thing the Craftsman/Shingle/Prairie lexicon persists, and enjoys periodic spasms of popularity. Perhaps this archetype is destined for that timeless, perennial category which includes Spanish/Mediterranean, and Colonial. Maybe it also helps make the style less alien, more palatable to the uninitiated, those most likely to misguidedly alter and abuse fine period examples.

Can't Judge A Book

Really?

Typically this sign adorns uncomely, or plain looking residences. A compensating mechanism?

Furthermore, it's seldom that I ever see a great interior attached to a bland exterior. It happens though, often exteriors are the last to receive attention. Homeowners work through systems, bathrooms, kitchens, etc, the stuff they need to live, before finally focusing on the facade. But even those postponed facades usually hold promise.

That's why neighborhoods undergoing re-appreciation will often continue to improve visually, even without turnover. Restoration projects, after decades of deferred maintenance, can take years to complete.

Me, I'm a detail guy, and I like a complex facade. Usually, rich exterior elements portend strong interior elements. Similarly, when a facade rich in detail is being compromised, or being made more simple, you can bet the same is happening inside.

Economic Miracles Part 1

Whereas most building styles moved East to West, mined from Europe and elsewhere, California was ground zero for the short lived Mission Style, and Los Angeles the mother lode.

Preservation is about many things, continuity, identity, tradition, and it should particularly apply to rare indigenous forms.

The Mission Style is marked by its parapets (and thick coping), towers, and full-length, arcaded porches, elements borrowed from California's real and imagined Spanish Colonial past.

In Alvarado Terrace, this example is still identifiable. That's the best that can be said, the distinctive massing has not been totally obliterated. Nearly anything can be restored, though restoration minded home buyers generally seek the most intact properties, not necessarily in avoidance of great challenges, but in rejoice of existing--sometimes irreplaceable--elements, and the opportunity for a high degree of "integrity". Correspondingly, the most heavily altered properties are those least likely to be restored.

Over time this gulf widens, the most intact and/or restored properties command the highest prices, and attract buyers with the most resources and the greatest sensitivities. Heavily altered properties suffer from additional neglect, or poor workmanship and the use of inappropriate and cheap materials. The value of these properties are retarded, registering less appreciation--or in a softer market as present, the greatest losses.

Hate Crimes, Loving Responses (Part 2)

The response to Hate Crimes (like some of my previous stucco diatribes) has been intensely supportive. Desperado critic and Arts & Crafts au fait Jane Powell offered her endorsement, and has penned a more extensive, similarly flavored piece for publication. Stucco Liberation Front leader Lisa Auerbach added choice comments. Hernandez Hernandez intriguingly blamed the auto industry, and its consumerist conditioning. Michelle Emard delivered flyers (pictured) utilized by the Anaheim Colony Historic District.

Many communities distribute similar hand-outs, and most tout the importance of education.
With perhaps a touch of cynicism, I argue for regulation, HPOZ's, design review boards, etc. Typically though, some lunk-head objects to the oversight, 'I don't want the Man telling me what I can and cannot do with my home,' goes the riff.
"Move to the outback then," begins my vinegar-y response, "because the Man already exercises control, with occupancy and use restrictions, zoning, permitting processes and building codes."

'Are we to saved from ourselves?' sneer the property rights zealots.
"We're mostly prisoners of our times," I might respond, undeterred by accusations of patriarchy, "sufferers of historical astigmatism, guilty of egregious environmental disregard (of both the built and natural). Who doesn't regret the destruction of Penn Station, the herding of low income African Americans into bunkerized, neo-brutalist towers, hill-topping, and the loss of architect masterworks like the Larkin Building, or Sullivan's Zion Temple?"
'So is it planners you're championing, or planners you're decrying?' question the critics.

"I'm championing preservation, simple preservation".

Hate Crimes Part I

Most vernacular housing built in Los Angeles between 1870 - 1920, was clad with wood. After World War I however, house styles began to change (again) and stucco became the dominant exterior treatment. Stucco is a mixture of cement, sand, water, and lime; and, is applied to almost any rigid surface by trowel. It's a versatile compound with great expressive qualities and tremendous durability.

So what's my beef? More of the usual, I've grown increasingly unwilling to absolve those who suffocate beautifully modulated clapboard and shingle in a stucco straitjacket. I don't care about lower maintenance claims; or, that a stucco facade is associated with high status in Timbuktu.
The latter is touchy stuff, but who's got patience for ethnocentrism? I neither insist on a seventh-inning stretch at the bull fight, nor refuse to remove my galoshes when entering a traditional Japanese interior.

Yeah, the defenders cry, but you're an educated mutt who understands theories of cultural relativism. "What about the loss of unique culture forms," I rebut somewhat anfractuously, "doesn't that deserve a little play?" Anyhow before I devolve into an irresolvable hash-slinger about enculturation and perception, back to the gripe.

This architecturally dulling process is generally accomplished by firstly attaching some form of wire lath to the wood siding. Often moldings are discarded too, or consumed by the application.
Preservation may not be about aesthetics, but dang it's hard to believe some would prefer "the flat."

The sociologists chime in again: judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation.

Can I get an expert witness?!

More Bar Removal

Hunter Ochs rang, "I read the blog entry about bar removal (Gone in 20 Minutes), and it sounded fun--particularly the part about the taqueria."

"It isn't fun," I countered, "it's a freshet of hot sparks, flakes of metal, and paint--hard, dirty work....I'll call Josh, we'll be right over."

I'm asked repeatedly about the presence of security bars in West Adams. Mostly, they're a vestige of an earlier, more fearful time, beginning with the 'defensible spaces' discourse of the 1970's. Form follows fear. These bars were installed at least two owners ago, prior to 1990.

A few concerned homeowners go beyond window bars, utilizing alienated poochies, razor wire, alarm systems, even protection from a higher power. Statues of the Virgin Mary, housed in plexiglass trophy cases or in a spotlit niche.

Still, security bars are as often removed today in southern Mid-City as installed. Frequently the catalyst for bar removal is the simple need to paint. After the purge, some residents initially feel a bit exposed, even vulnerable, though usually such feelings are short-lived. Most later indicate a greater sense of engagement and connectedness with the exterior.

Many homeowners remove their security grilles an exposure at a time--an audition of sorts, beginning in the front, and ending in the rear.

The holes left by the bolts can be filled with wood dowels, chiseled, filled, and sanded flush.

Manufacturers seek to make these impregnations more decorative, like wrought iron rather than mild steel, with ridiculous curly ques, spears, finials, and twists.

Rather like trying to make a silk purse of a sow's ear.

Gone in 20 Minutes

Josh Berman continues full throttle on his restoration rampage. First he removed the asbestos siding from his Craftsman Bungalow (see Before and Just After, 3/4/08), next he began to strip moldings and casings (of paint). Saturday, he recruited me to help remove his front (so-called) security door. I issued my terms of engagement, "I'll need a grinder, extension cord, two cut-off wheels, and a take out order from the taqueria on Jefferson."

These metal doors are generally installed with one-way screws, impossible to back out even with bit and gun. My technique is to grind the screw heads off and then using a very large carpenter pull (see image left), twist them out. Ultimately we were able to tip the entire door construct (rigid frame and all) forward and off.


The recojedores, hip to the scrap resale opportunity, loitered just beyond the work scene, buzzard-like, puzzled--though not the least bit distracted, nor made introspective--by our bourgeoisie obsession with things pretty.

Once the grinder emerges, it's hard to holster. With missionary zeal, we sought to eradicate other blight. Neighbor Kathleen beckoned, "you can cut off my window bars, I'm tired of the penitentiary look."
"Ok," Josh commanded, "we'll need an extension cord, two cut-off wheels, and a take out order from the taqueria on Jefferson."

Porcelain Pursuit Part One

With each passing year, it becomes harder to find the good stuff, intact pre-war plumbing, particularly toilets.

My lookout is constant, and often I'm aided by tipsters. A.J. called about a sink in a dumpster, Katie about a deco toilet on Craig's List.


Recently I gleamed a rare cast iron tank (pictured left with bowl). Cast iron tanks were cheaper and once more plentiful (than their porcelain counterpart). Many however were scrapped during WWII, or in more recent times, and are often passed over, even by vintage plumbing restorers, because of the costs associated with refinishing the tank interior.


The majority of the commodes that end up on the street, are cruddy, thin-walled, first gen no-flows. In 1994 federal law created a new toilet manufacturing standard and a 1.6 gpf (gallons per flush) decree. Correspondingly, municipalities began to incentivize, or mandate (at the time of real property sale) the replacement of older, larger tanks. Of course, nearly all pre-war toilets can be retrofitted with a smaller liner, some were already more efficient, and most were plain ol' better operating. No matter, they got tossed; however, many of the low-flos were poor performing, with flimsy flapper valves, and...voila. Last year the EPA released a voluntary 1.28 gpf specification for high efficiency toilets. Manufacturers that meet the voluntary standard can display a Water Sense logo.

Planned obsolescence has found its camouflage: conservation.

Boarding Houses

An ordinary dwelling house in Harvard Heights is being marketed as 15 bedrooms. In Pico Heights a lodging-house is shared by 35, with beds doing double-duty, sheets never sharp, as day sleepers succeed day laborers. Another property in Angelus Vista rents 22 rooms.

"Higher density is good," coo the smart growth sect. Still, is this what they had in mind? In some Los Angeles neighborhoods, hyper extended families and passels of unrelated individuals are serried into detached single family housing like passengers on the Chiyoda line.

The California Code of Regulations, which includes the 1991 Uniform Housing Code, contains residential occupancy standards. A home must have at least one room of 120 square feet. Additional rooms must be at least 70 square feet. Two people may occupy a room, and for each additional 50 square feet, so may another (occupy). The Code does not distinguish between a bedroom, living room, dining room, or kitchen. All rooms can be used for sleeping except bathrooms, hallways, closets, and stairwells.

Reads a bit loosey goosey, eh? Still some affordable housing advocates protest stricter limits, with claims of increased homelessness and market impenetrability.

Who's minding the store? I've seen sleeping arrangements in hallways, once on a staircase landing, and in closets (mostly children in large closets). Recently, I toured a property on Maple wherein four shared a bedroom with miniature doberman pinschers. Hanging from the ceiling, a heavy glass chandelier was coated with dust thick enough to resemble fur. I never discovered how many bedrooms the house contained, false walls had been built, dividing public rooms and even other bedrooms in halves and thirds. Some spaces were window less, sanctuaries for mysterious odors.

Another installation, in Harvard Heights, featured a line of damp washing in the foyer. Towels competed for hooks in perpetually humid, sweltering bathrooms. Most sport the usual kitchen living-room with an industrial range burning night and day, and its side-kick, the enormous vat of clarified pork fat to aid deep frying. Optional: the perpetual and pungent (though not always objectionable) smell of fermenting vegetables (kimchi).

END PART 1
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Today's open: 2241 1/2 W. 24th ST 2 - 5 pm

Window Replacement (Part One)

The only thing made certain by window replacement is more window replacement.

This property recently exchanged its high-efficiency, noise muffling, value adding aluminum windows for....high-efficiency, noise muffling, value adding vinyl windows.

With some wood windows in continuous use for over 500 years, you gotta feel good about those everlasting aluminum windows and their nearly 20 years of yeoman service, er planned obsolescence. Which is probably more than the owners will get out of this improved vinyl product. But who cares? Seemingly not the gullible consumer and certainly not the window industry, which peddles energy efficiency and cost savings--responsible virtues, whilst stoking a needless consumption cycle and contributing to a land-fill of old-growth lumber, lead ballast, cord, and glass.

Of course, wood windows can be double paned too (though sound reduction depends on the distance between panes, an often overlooked consideration), are reparable (unlike many other materials), and can be made as energy efficient (through weather stripping, et al). While vinyl window systems can limit draft, most conductive (energy) losses occur around the frame, so the unit's efficiency actually depends on the installation. (Note the expanding foam around the far window.) Unsurprisingly, sloppy installations abound: daylight leaks around undersized frames or gaps filled with ply scrap and wood shims. This is also why homes often stucco (over clapboard) in combination with window replacement, because the new off-the-rack windows don't fit the old custom casings.

Consider the side view image again, not a lot of glass face, eh? Another by-product of the stucco/re-fenestration coupling, windows are down-sized or eliminated altogether (to avoid the cost of custom sizes and the intrusion of re-framing for larger windows). Consequently, houses (or commercial buildings, see next) lose natural light and become more energy and climate control dependent.

END PART ONE

Agent Turn-ons

I've seen a lot of houses, seen most of the best over this-a-way. Noted the secret compartments, wall safes, and octagonal rooms. All of it, a major real estate agent turn-on, as is this.

That's right, a hot water heater.

Not just any hot water heater, a Hoyt copper tank heater, possibly from the early 1960's. In normal water these tanks, of copper, bronze, or monel (a copper-nickel mix) can last a lifetime--anode need not apply. I once observed a Whitehead Monel tank from the late 1940's, still in use. (From time to time, I also encounter early steel galvanized tanks, usually disconnected in attics, frequently with date stamps.)

Oftentimes the copper-monel tanks had external flues, as opposed to today's center flues, whereby gases flowed between the wall of the tank and the exterior shell, a greater surface area for heat exchange. Some featured a drain valve, to remove sediment, and extend the tank's life.

Sadly, predictably, frustratingly, tanks like this are no longer made. Plumbing obsolescence....don't get me started!

This property also possessed some drains of copper, quite unusual.

Most Asked Questions #1

How to strip painted metal hardware?

There are many techniques, some probably better than mine. I begin by soaking the hardware in a dilute bath of tri sodium phosphate (TSP). I prefer TSP to conventional paint strippers, for cost, handling, and disposal. (Incidentally, one neighbor swears by the de-laminating power of Coca Cola, as if you needed another reason to quit drinking the stuff.)
I prefer to work with TSP in a liquid rather than a powder form. Over time the powder binds, has to be chipped loose, becomes airborne and inopportunely snorted. The liquid TSP substitutes seem to work fine as well.

How long do things need to soak? After a few hours begin to probe or even score the paint with dental picks and awls. Wire brushes and scrubbing pads are your principal weapons. Dental floss can penetrate hard to reach places. Use superfine steel wool for the final clean up. Sometimes pieces need to soak longer, even days, with the TSP solution refreshed periodically.

Now and then I'll leave something in too long and it'll grow rusty; but even those apparent casualties can often be reclaimed, scrubbed, polished clean, and re-plated. Some like to lacquer (usually spray on) their hardware afterwords, or wipe with furniture polish (like Old English).

These butterfly hinges had been painted repeatedly. I worked on each for about 2 minutes, on three or four occasions, over a week.
None have been polished or lacquered.
****************************************************************************
Thanks everybody for coming by my open yesterday, in the extreme (outdoor) heat. I'll be back in the air conditioned comfort of 2361 W. 20th tomorrow from 11 - 2:30, the last scheduled showing until after the Western Heights home tour.

Clear Coating

More and more I'm transitioning to water-based products, even in my finishes. In the kitchen, of all rooms, I'm using General Finishes Polyacrylic, on my ebony-stained woodwork.

I first sought out water based products after a series of tests revealed the yellowing effects of the oil-based top coats. I wanted to maintain the stain color, but the amber base of the varnishes and shellacs (shellacs use a natural resin secreted by a tree beetle) overly intensified the warm accents. (Which sometimes is a desirable effect.)

The General Finishes Top Coat, looks milky but goes on clear. Fine Woodworking Magazine rated the General Finishes product, available through Rockler, best in the water based finishes brush-on category. The water based products still contain many of the same materials as oil-based products, notably urethane, alkyd, and acrylic, but some of the flammable and most polluting chemicals have been replaced by water.

Oh and another thing, the stuff hardly smells and its drying time seems shorter.

Nightwalking Part 2/1620 Oak

I never take the same route on my walks, it's pathological. For that matter, I dislike even driving the same route. My son will sometimes ask whilst in the car, headed to school or home, "why are we going this way?"
To which I'll usually respond, "because we haven't before."

Finding that "new block", the block I haven't sauntered along before, excites me. In those instances, I usually schlepp about, halving my pace, to take special notice. Sometimes I see things that cause me to return in the day. I saw such a thing on the 1700 block of Berendo.

Not for the watch-kitties at the corner of Berendo and Washington, but an exact copy of 1620 Oak Street. Yeah I know, other houses in West Adams and environs have a match.

Some new home owners, hoping for restoration clues, spend their free time driving around looking for a match. Sometimes a WAHA diehard helps out, "your first floor is identical to the Lambert's, only reversed."




Once I identified another pair of look-alikes, and as I paused to take a picture, the owner appeared.
"Your house", I trumpeted, "is identical to another on Cimarron."
"This is my house," he countered warily.
"Yes", I nodded, "and there's a house ten blocks away with the same porch details and windows."
"And the colors," he inquired.
"They're different, " I answered.
"Then they're not the same," he bellowed, slamming his screen door.

Recent Lowlights

Everybody has their likes and dislikes, those things they react to viscerally, discount hastily, into which they invest too much or too little.

I try to be open-minded, and not carry any irrational bias into a property viewing.
Most things after all, can be undone. Front yard driveways can be taken up, stucco can be removed, ill-constructed lean-tos can be demolished. One needn't be a pollyanna, cheerleading for every sad-sack property and lame-o listing; but, one also needn't throw out the baby in the bathwater.

Still there are a few things that perenially burst the gonfalon bubble.

The hot water heater in the front yard. (A milder variation is, the hot water heater that's just plain uncovered.) Sometimes it accompanies a major shift in use, and a major re-plumb, wherein front rooms have become kitchens (or what is described next). But who wants to re-program an entire house?

Washer/dryer hookups in the living room. (A lesser variation is the dining room.) The first time I saw this, I wondered if the owners were running a laundry service. Ironing boards abounded, a television was mounted high on a wall, and the floors were covered with white ceramic tile. Alternatively, the utility hall was converted, by way of a curtain hung lengthwise--to conceal a bunk bed--into a rinconcito for the mother-in-law. Her earthly belongings, clothes, beads, and a stack of People En Espanol magazines filled the top bunk. She sat below reading the issue entitled Los 50 Mas Bellos.

Exotic animal rooms aka the Herpetorium. Snakes as big as your thigh. With yellow eyes. A room full. A million dollar plus house in the West Adams heartland, a Craftsman mansion. The big game trophys and taxidermy were a bit odd, but not nearly as discomfiting as a bedroom bedecked with heat lamps, bounding with boas. Just try telling a young mother, "and this could be the nursery...."

Twilight

I'm a stalker. Twilight is the best time, to walk about West Adams, and peer into windows (from a respectful distance, natch)--shades yet undrawn. The daytime sky is dimming, the contrast range narrowing, and interior lights are coming on.














I'm an architectural voyeur. Is the woodwork painted? Does the dining room light fixture look original? Leaded glass? Sconces?

The darker, the murkier, the more tantalizing.

The pearlescent glow of a NuArt shade, beckons.

Gang Green

Last week I visited the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.. Amongst the exhibits, The Green House: new directions in sustainable architecture and design.

It sucked.

Throughout, a lot of talk about conserving the earth's resources. Most all the case study houses were modernist trophy homes, in the San Juan Islands, the desert Southwest, on the Batiquitos Lagoon. Aggrandizing owner/builders touted bamboo flooring, precast insulated panels, and recycled agricultural waste composite board. They'll have plenty of time to feel good about themselves on their hour long commutes, or whilst using our extended grid.

What's really green? For starters, preservation, restoration, repair.

Yeah I know there's the occasional green in-fill, like in Venice, where modest colonials are detonated to make way for phallic towers with transparent thermal walls and fiber optic pendant lights. More often, these righteous green jeans-ers command some dreamy eucalyptus grove, verdant countryside, or wet-lands adjacent hillside. Being "sustainable" is the least they can do.

Still, the National Building Museum is cool. Originally the home of the United States Pension Bureau, its most stunning feature is the 300 foot long, 100 foot wide atrium/Great Hall, which soars to 159 feet at its heighest point. Supposedly built of 15.5 million bricks (in 1887), the "Old Red Barn" was designed by Montgomery Meigs, who had served as a quartermaster general of the Union army during the Civil War. The Great Hall is divided into three courts by two rows of colossal Corithian columns, painted to look like marble. The National Building Museum came to occupy the building beginning in 1985.

Teardown Teardrops

National teardown figures have yet to be compiled, but the conservative National Association of Home Builders has estimated that 75,000 houses are razed and replaced with larger homes annually.

According to Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the hardest hit areas include Chicago's suburbs, the Beltway, the Bay Area, the Jersey Shore, and Palm Springs. Hinsdale, Illinois, a 133-year old village, 20 miles west of Chicago, has been dubbed America's Teardown Capital. About 30% of Hinsdale's 4,700 homes are "replacements".

In the many historic L.A. neighborhoods that lack protective powers (like HPOZ's), complete re-builds (what some more flatteringly refer to as "re-habs") are more common (than "teardowns"), wherein only some portion of the first-floor framing survives, or a section of roofline.



Aspiring to modernism, but achieving "cheapism", these boxey makeovers look ridiculous with their vestigial, steeply-pitched roofs, like an aging Casanova with a jet-black hair piece.



Ironically in LA's historic core, where "integrity" (meaning the intactness of the building) is most valued, these standardizing re-do's effectively constitute blight. That is, properties whose condition (or appearance) is detrimental to the social, physical, and economic well-being of a community.

Stripped of their economic-optimizing potential, these properties become less likely to attract significant future investment, sentenced to a "B" or sub-market standing.

The Worst Paint Job?!

Two German architecture fans, Johann Lotter and Reinhard Wissdorf, have written a surreal detective novel in which a serial killer destroys a number of ugly buildings around Frankfurt. What might the fictional killer do with this manky facade, I wonder.

Technically, this may not be the "worst paint job"; only, the "worst color choices". Perhaps the owners are trying to bring whimsy to another "fortified" bungalow, smothered with inartfully applied stucco, its porch resembling the jaws of a robotic canine.

The front porch, the social spring, the fountainhead of communal relations, rendered inpenetrable, inhospitable, unneighborly, behind a veil of gleaming white.

How Light Becomes Dark

Restoration gods help me, the next time somebody says, "But you know Craftsman houses are so dark."

Dark wood, does not necessarily a dark house make. Frequently, the houses became darker, as they were altered, updated even.

A recent purchase by clients in the West Adams Avenues is a case in point. Heavy drapery, rust-colored carpeting, awnings, and an enclosed, faux-paneled porch, combined to lower the lux.





A window even was covered (to make another closet), non-carpeted floors were blanketed with a dark vinyl, and the original back door--which likely had a glass panel or two--was replaced by a solid, hollow core.





In other cases, security doors and screens are a light robbing culprit, as is run-away landscaping, drop ceilings, side yard car ports, and spite fences.

Sure darkness is in the eye of the beholder. Sure dark woodwork may cut down on reflectivity, but incident light--that's another matter. A matter considered by architects and builders in the Arts & Crafts era. Don't blame 1910 for 1934, 1958, 1971, or 1994.

The Ninth Commandment

The Secretary of the Interior is responsible for establishing standards and advising Federal agencies on the preservation and rehabilitation of historic properties.

Rehabilitation is defined as, "the process of returning a property to a state of utility, through repair or alteration, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the property which are significant to its historic, architectural, and cultural values".


Like other sacred endeavors, there are ten commandments, most are straight-ahead, reasonable guidelines. Then there's commandment number nine: New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment. Compatible but differentiated.

This is the one that gives the architects, the egoists, the history infidels, wiggle room.

Pictures please, historic branch library on Jefferson Boulevard (in historic West Adams).







Does this look compatible to you? Differentiated sure. Compatible? This is about as compatible as the Luxor cleaved to Fallingwater. Like the Jetson's toaster collided with Aladdin's lamp. Like Christy Brinkley and Billy Joel.


Apparently, 'differentiated' means build whatever dissimilar thing you want, Modernist-revival pitch can, Bauhausian up-chuck, hypermodern sharp-cornered cinder-block bomb shelter. Good grief.

Stuccalow--No Mas!

Amongst the most misguided remodeling or "modernizing" efforts is the application of stucco over wood clapboard. Contrary to stubborn belief, stucco neither acts as an insulator nor protectant, nor does it add to property values. It is however, quite decharacterizing and can also lead to an increase in--sometimes hard to detect--termite issues. Nor is stucco a low maintence product, frequently developing cracks, and requiring paint as often as wood siding.

Louis and Lisa are just the latest to embark on a de-stucco-ing campaign.



The stucco is usually applied over chicken wire, nailed to the clapboard. The stucco can by cut, by a diamond blade on a circular saw, or simply smashed with a hammer to permit a hand hold, and then pulled or pried loose. A wire cutter can be helpful too, to sever the chicken wire, often exposing a poor surface bond, with allows the stucco to be pulled away in large chunks.



Ordinarily the clapboard is only damaged at the bottom, or skirt, near the ground where the stucco is applied most heavily. Holes in the clapboard can be filled easily and then normal paint prep pursued. Sometimes stucco is used to mask deficiencies in the siding, like covering a hole in the floor with a rug; still even then, siding can be replaced ("patched") by a carpenter of average skill.

Comebacks

Los Angeles once boasted the largest interurban railway system in the country. That system, the Pacific Electric Railway, largely extinct since 1961, has been revived in one small part.

The Port of Los Angeles has resurrected a portion of the original San Pedro Red Car line, 1.5 miles along its waterfront. Three cars are in operation, one restored car and two exact replicas of the 500-class design series that ran from 1903-1930.




The ride (one-day unlimited) costs a buck, transfers to shuttles, and is free for kids (moreover they receive a paper conductors cap and Red Car history coloring book.) The days of operation are Friday through Monday (10 am to 6 pm), with service every 20 minutes.

I took my son last Monday, after we first watched the documentary, This is Pacific Electric. There were so few riders that the conductor was willing to explain the controls, gauges, and whistle. A few rail buffs (there's always a few), chatted about, comparing rail museums. The best, they claimed, are in Sacramento and Perris. Perris? Hmmm, expect a report soon.

Uglification

Another dream, this time I'm yanking down cement block walls with chain, tow hitch, and pick-up, exhuming beautiful clapboard buried beneath villainous swirls of French Lace stucco--and without permission. I'm a restoration terrorist.




My alter ego would be sure to make this sign disappear.

Sold on the basis of energy efficiency, most of these vinyl vanguards are no more efficient than period wood windows. Some claim to damper sound. Of course, wood windows can be double paned, glazing can be replaced, weathstripping can be installed. Awful hard to modify these off-the-rack sliders though. Yet another product from makeover land, with built in obsolescence and inferior aesthetics.




Preservation credo aside, even with the faux muntins, who prefers this flat, dimension-less, vinyl checkerboard to....oh, wait did I fail to mention that I salvaged the original windows from this debacle. Sure, check out the photo of the leaded glass transoms. Can you dig it? I hereby sentence the homeowners to an art history class, or to an afternoon at the Gamble House, or just a stiff talking to.




What'd Lewis Carroll write:."..ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision".
Only the nonsense this time, isn't Carroll's verse, it's replacement windows.

Beautiful Paper

Am I an iconoclast?

I don't automatically subscribe to all the old axioms, like "buy more house that you can afford--you'll grow into it"; or, "you can change the house, but you can't change the neighborhood." Still if there's one adage that probably won't draw my dissent, it's: "buy the cheapest house in the best neighborhood". (Now I might quarrel with how one defines the "best" neighborhood, but....)

Anyhow, I recently had a smart client that did just that. Quarreled with me? No, I meant bought the cheapest house thing. Naturally the house needed a lot of fixin', and amongst the first "demo" casualties were the carpets (covering oak floors), and a pair of enormous, storage closets built for the purposes of converting public areas to bedrooms. In the living room, one of these wall-length monsters blocked windows of slag glass and a fireplace! In the dining room, the closet extraction revealed glimpses of a beautiful early twentieth-century wallpaper (ergo, article A above). Can the paper be preserved? We're unsure. Regrettably, it's already missing in places. However, enough exists that a stencil might be made to match. Stay tuned. (Incidentally, the house was built in 1907. The dining room walls appeared to have first been painted red, then papered.)