A few months ago, reports indicated that This Old House was looking for a renovation project in the Los Angeles area. The team has now selected a house and begun work quickly.
For the first time, This Old House chose a 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival home for a full renovation. The property is located in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. The existing house measures about 1,500 square feet, and the approved plans call for a 750-square-foot addition to accommodate the homeowners’ growing family.
The Los Angeles project will also highlight the region’s architectural diversity. The production team plans to include visits to other significant renovations in the area, such as the ongoing work at the Hollyhock House and preservation efforts at architect Richard Neutra’s home.
Updates from the project will be posted as work progresses; viewers can follow the homeowners’ blog and web cams to track the renovation in real time.
Below is more information from the press release about the project:
THIS OLD HOUSE EMBARKS ON FIRST-EVER RENOVATION PROJECT IN LOS ANGELES
Spanish Colonial Revival to Receive a Hollywood-Style Renovation on the New Season of the Emmy Award–Winning Series
CONCORD, Mass., (September 23, 2010) – For the first time in its 30-year history, the PBS home improvement series This Old House is traveling to Los Angeles to execute a West Coast renovation. A charming 1930s Spanish Colonial Revival home in the hillside community of Silver Lake will receive a full makeover from the show’s expert crew. The This Old House Los Angeles project, which includes 10 new episodes, premiered nationally on PBS beginning Thursday, January 27, 2011 (check local listings for airtimes).
To accommodate a growing family, the This Old House team—working with local tradespeople—plans a modest expansion of the home’s footprint, adding a second floor and modern updates while preserving the period details that define the house.
Homeowner Kurt Albrecht purchased the house in 1998 and moved in with his wife, Mary Blee. They were drawn to the home’s original period style and its view of the Silver Lake Reservoir, as well as the neighborhood’s diversity and central location near Downtown, Glendale, Burbank and Hollywood. The single-story, 1,500-square-foot house was ideal for a young couple, so initial changes were limited to minor cosmetic updates. As their family grew, however, they decided to pursue more comprehensive renovations.
This Old House experts collaborated with Los Angeles contractor Steve Pallrand and his design-build firm Home Front on a 750-square-foot expansion that adds a second floor, enlarges the kitchen, creates a new family room, and includes two additional bathrooms and two more bedrooms. The plans also call for preserving and replicating many existing period features the homeowners value, including arched doorways, tray ceilings, plaster ornamentation, inlaid floors and Art Deco lighting.
“This project embodied all the elements we were hoping to find in our first-ever Los Angeles renovation, and Spanish Colonial Revival is a style we’ve never worked on before, so it’s particularly exciting for us,” said This Old House host Kevin O’Connor. “Southern California is rich in architectural history, but quite different from the New England homes we typically feature on the show. We look forward to sharing this and many other remarkable aspects of the area with our viewers.”
Episodes from the Los Angeles project will include side stories that showcase the region’s distinctive lifestyles, notable building projects and local craftspeople. One segment highlights the renovations underway at the city-owned Hollyhock House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Los Angeles commission built between 1919 and 1921. Another episode spotlights preservation efforts at the Silver Lake home and studio of the late architect Richard Neutra, an important figure in California Modernism.
“This Old House will introduce national audiences to mid-century, Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and other neighborhood landmarks that are essential to Los Angeles’ architectural identity,” said Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti. “The series will emphasize Los Angeles’ role as a leading architecture city and encourage homeowners to recognize and preserve our architectural treasures.”
“We love the Hollywood sign and the Walk of Fame, but Los Angeles is far more than those landmarks,” said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “The city is a collection of historic neighborhoods—filled with outstanding examples of Victorian, Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and residential modernism. Local preservation efforts help strengthen communities and protect the authentic character that drew people to these neighborhoods in the first place. This Old House is committed to telling those stories and showing viewers aspects of Los Angeles they don’t often see.”
Show producers selected the Silver Lake property after an extensive search that included outreach to the local architectural community and a public call for entries earlier in the year, which produced several hundred submissions. Previously, the This Old House crew completed four other California projects—two in Santa Barbara, one in Napa Valley and one in San Francisco—the most recent of which finished a decade earlier.