Craig Ellwood, “the Cary Grant of architecture,” certainly has a way of wooing us with clean lines, steel beams, and expanses of glass.
The self-taught practitioner dubbed the “California Mies van der Rohe” built the Courtyard Apartments located at 1570 La Baig Avenue in Hollywood as four interlocking units for celebrity TV host Roy Maypole.
Listed as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 801, the exposed steel, glass, and brick and the seamless play between indoors and out not only became trademarks of Ellwood’s successive work (think – Case Study Houses, the Smith House and Casa Kuderna) but earned him international recognition as the first prize recipient of the ‘Collective Dwelling Category‘ in the 1954 International Exhibition of Architecture in São Paulo, Brazil, where the judges included Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Alvar Aalto, Jose Luis Sert.
The four-plex turned triplex now consists of two, two-bedrooms, one-bath units and one large two-bedroom, two-and-a-half bathroom unit. Meticulously restored, the multi-family dwelling features tons of natural light streaming in through floor-to-ceiling sliding glass walls, concrete floors, beamed ceilings, private patios, fireplaces, and up-to-date systems and appliances.
Listing courtesy of Mike Deasy & Sara Celphane – Deasy Penner Podley