The Town House (Los Angeles, California)

The Town House is a large former hotel property built in 1929 on Wilshire Boulevard, adjacent to Lafayette Park in the Westlake district of Los Angeles, California. After a long career as a hotel it operates today as low income housing.

History

The Town House was developed by oil magnate Edward Doheny as one of the most luxurious apartment-hotels in Southern California. Designed by Norman W. Alpaugh and built at a cost of $3 million, it opened on September 11, 1929. It is a very late example of the Beaux Arts style, with a brick and terra cotta facade with classical detailing. The Town House “ran into financial difficulties soon after completion of the building,” and “permits to sell stock were canceled by the state corporation department.” Under the reorganization plan for the Wilshire-Commonwealth Corporation, Ltd, creditors accepted stock in payment of the debts owed them. Being an "apartment hotel" for the affluent, its prominent residents then included Byron H. Canfield, board chairman of Scripps-Canfield newspapers. Financial troubles continued in the mid-1930s, when the Wilshire-Commonwealth Corporation sought reorganization in U.S. Court, being in debt to the Metropolitan Life Insurance firm for $720,000 in late 1934. On 10 July 1937 Metropolitan Life Insurance announced its sale of the property to Chicago-based Kirkeby Hotel Company for "approximately" one million dollars. The building was converted to operate exclusively as a hotel in 1937, featuring one of the most glamorous bars in the city, the Zebra Room, with interiors by noted designer Wayne McAllister.

A mid-1942 advertisement described the building's smallest and cheapest apartment units—renting at $185 monthly—as having "living room ith wood-burning fireplace bedroom, kitchen, dinette, and bath." Amenities included room service from the building's restaurants, daily maid service, and access to the roof solarium, putting green, tennis court, and new outdoor swimming pool.

Conrad Hilton bought the Town House in 1942, paying owner Arnold Kirkeby $150,000 cash and assuming $830,000 of debt. Elizabeth Taylor celebrated her first marriage, to Hilton heir Conrad Hilton, Jr., at the hotel in 1950. The Town House was sold to Sheraton Hotels in 1954 and became the Sheraton-Town House. In 1958, Sheraton renamed the hotel the Sheraton-West Hotel. Sheraton sold the hotel to the Kyo-Ya group in 1972, although Sheraton retained management. In 1976, the hotel added four tennis courts at the rear of the enormous property, which covered nearly an entire city block. In 1978 the hotel's name reverted to the Sheraton-Town House. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the area around Lafayette Park became less desirable and more dangerous and after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, the hotel finally closed in February 1993.

Just as it was about to be demolished, the property was purchased by developer Rob MacLeod. He enlisted the Santa Monica-based firm of Killefer Flammang Architects (KFA), noted for their renovations of historic buildings, to convert the 255-room hotel into 142 units of low-income housing, under a 55-year covenant. The building reopened in December 2001.

In 2017, the north half of the massive 1.8 acre property, containing the long-abandoned tennis courts and the hotel parking lot, was redeveloped by Century West Partners with the construction of a new 398-unit apartment complex, Next on Sixth, also designed by KFA. The Town House is currently owned by the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing.

The Town House was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1994 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in 1997. Other registered historic sites within one block of the Town House include the Bryson Apartment Hotel, Bullocks Wilshire, the Felipe de Neve branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system, and the Granada Shoppes and Studios.

Description of Physical Appearance

The construction of The Town House, a 13-story hotel tower accompanied by a two-story annex and both south and north garages, started in July 1928 and reached completion in 1929. The Town House complex is sited at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Commonwealth Avenue, about four miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The property features around 180 feet of frontage on Commonwealth Avenue and 125 feet along Wilshire Boulevard. Due to its angular position along Wilshire, its location opposite Lafayette Park, and its thirteen-story height, the building is a prominent Wilshire landmark visible to those traveling west from downtown along the Boulevard.

The hotel is a 13-story, Class "A" steel-frame structure with a Period Revival Style design, featuring cast concrete and reinforced brick construction. The building, which stands 150 feet tall, includes reinforced concrete foundations, brick and concrete exterior walls, and wood-reinforced concrete floors. It also has a composition roof over reinforced concrete and two subterranean parking garages. Adjacent to the main hotel structure is a two-story annex building constructed from cast concrete and plaster, used for dining and banquets. The hotel and annex are isolated by a driveway at street level but connected by a walkway at the second-story level, and they are contiguous below ground. The north garage, though constructed simultaneously, is a separate structure. The hotel, annex, and garages hold historical importance dating back to their construction in 1929.

The hotel is considered a contributing building. While the annex and south garage are counted as one non-contributing building due to alterations to the annex, the north garage remains a contributing structure. Non-contributing elements added after the period of significance include an outdoor swimming pool (1942) and two lanai buildings (1948 and 1955), which altered the original roof garden's configuration; only specimen palm trees from the original garden can be documented.

A surface parking lot, paved with asphalt around 1960, is adjacent to the northernmost Lanai Building, providing access to the subterranean parking structures beneath the buildings and garden area. An asphalt-paved tennis court, surrounded by six-foot-tall cyclone fencing covered with green windscreen mesh, borders the property on the west. However, neither the tennis court nor the parking lot falls within the property's historic boundaries.

In 1929, The Town House was set in the upscale Lafayette Park neighborhood, surrounded by elegant Beaux-Arts apartment buildings and high-end residences. Wilshire Boulevard, next to the Town House, stood as Southern California's most esteemed commercial avenue, featuring upscale retail stores and low-rise office buildings, many of which were designed in the elegant Period Revival style. While the hotel's exterior has retained its historic appearance, the interior has undergone extensive remodeling. The annex, though remodeled, still retains its historic character and design features. The entire property is currently vacant and secured against entry. The complex formally closed its doors as a hotel in February 1993.

See also

* List of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in the Wilshire and Westlake areas
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Los Angeles

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Town House
Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments
Residential buildings in Los Angeles
Hotels established in 1929
Mediterranean Revival architecture in California
Westlake, Los Angeles
Hotel buildings completed in 1929
Sheraton hotels