Maltman Bungalows, Los Angeles, California

April 27th, 2008 - Posted in Home Design

You can find almost anything in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles: a pair of sneakers in a limited edition, an obscure gourmet cheese, or a copy of Da Vinci Code Mandarin. What has not been available for much of the last decade, the gentrification that has taken full hold in the region, is a single-family home with an architecture of Appeals for less than about $ 800000.

Thanks to a unique effort of the city planning department, a local promoter, and a pair of preservation architects, which ultimately changed late last year with the opening, or rather the reopening of the Maltman – Bungalows on Maltman Avenue, near the District south of the ridge. Built in 1926, 17 bungalows line up in two rows and moderately injured on a plot of land less than 1 / 4 mile of a lively and walkable stretch of Sunset Boulevard. They constitute one of the many villages in bungalows “built in and around Los Angeles in the early 20th century.

Executed in a style Spanish rationalized by Irving Gill, with red tile parapets and simple, elegant profiles, the bungalows one bedroom measuring about 700 square feet each. (There is one two-bedroom unit.) Everyone has to be a modest decline, a small private garden, and an attached garage barely big enough to hold a Mini Cooper. The skyline of downtown Los Angeles, about 5 miles to the southeast, peeks on a nearby hill.

Designed as rental housing by an architect whose name is lost to history, bungalows Maltman had lost much of their original charm by the 1990’s. The same is true of other chalet villages across the city. As grew up in Los Angeles denser over the last decade, however, and as apartment living has grown more popular as an affordable alternative to the soaring prices of houses and long, officials in the planning office the city has begun to seek ways to bring them back to life. The effort received a significant boost when the city council at the end of 2004, has adopted the so-called small-Lot Subdivision Ordinance. In some areas already zoned for multifamily housing, the ordinance has allowed single-family homes to be built or leasing of existing units such as those on Maltman be converted into a single family on the status of individual lots of less than 5000 square feet.

Although the ordinance was drafted in part to encourage the construction of new chalet villages, it has been slow to gain momentum with developers. Sluggishness that prompted officials to start planning some encouraging openness developers to scout for existing court which could be converted into collections modest single-family homes.