Los Altos Apartments

About this property

The Los Altos Apartments is a Mission Revival-style apartment building on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Los Altos was built in 1925 and designed by Edward B. Rust and Luther Mayo. In 1999, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Spanish Colonial building began as Los Angeles' first co-op, including a 3300 square foot, two-story suite for William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies as their city flat. After the co-op went bankrupt during the Great Depression, Los Altos Hotel and Apartments became luxury housing for short- and long-term tenants, including Hollywood legends like Clara Bow, Bette Davis, Mae West, Douglas Fairbanks, Ava Gardner, and Judy Garland. Over the years the building fell into disrepair and was purchased in 1977 by Thomas Stegan who hired historical architect Raymond Girvigian to oversee asbestos removal, seismic retrofitting and cosmetic restoration. In the 1980s the building became a magnet for a bohemian list of residents. Jeff Ayeroff, who went on to co-found Virgin Records America and the Work Group, lived in the building as did screenwriter Becky Johnston while she wrote the scripts "Under the Cherry Moon" for Prince and "The Prince of Tides" for Barbra Streisand. Artists Nancy Reese, Phil Garner, Eric Blum and Tom Shannon all rented living quarters and art dealers Tom Jancar and Richard Kuhlenschmidt opened the Jancar Kuhlenschmidt Gallery in the basement of the building. New York hotshots Richard Prince and Louise Lawler had their first L.A. exhibitions there. Actor Frederic Forrest was living at the Los Altos when he turned in his critically acclaimed performance in Francis Ford Coppola's 1988 film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, as did musician Tommy Gear, who was a founding member of revered L.A. punk group The Screamers. Again, bankruptcy stopped renovations and Stagen stopped work in 1990. Tenants gradually left and Los Altos remained mostly empty because of a city-issued citation barring new tenants until the building could be brought up to the seismic code. The virtually deserted building had become a popular site for film productions seeking iconic Los Angeles settings.The city was planning to demolish Los Altos until 1996 when construction lawyer Larry Silverton and his partner Stephen Frankel bought it for restoration. Silverton discovered the building when it was used for a Playboy Playmate video shoot. Their company Dakota Investment reunited the apartment building with its historic 1920s parking garage that had been split off after WW II and did the seismic retrofitting that allowed Los Altos Apartments to have tenants again.

Location

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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