There's been a successful ground-floor facade restoration to William Douglas Lee's Guardian Arms Hotel and Apartments building at 5217 Hollywood Blvd next to the El Adobe Market and Studio building and just a block south of Laughlin Park. Good news for those of us interested in such things:
omgivning
Built in 1927 for $270K for Guardian Holdings. Two roof signs followed in 1931, but have since vanished. The building has very pretty vertical rows of bowed, casement windows with multi-paned, metal frames. It's built in a "U"-shape with the palm-filled light-well facing east. There's even a pair of cartouches for
e_r (as he probably already noticed). A very pretty building.
Lee is best known for El Royale (also 1927) and Chateau Marmont (1929) plus the great cache of DTLA buildings done with
Florence Casler.
Sometime back in the 50s or 60s, when the east end of Hollywood was becoming Bukowski country, the then-owners elected to "modernize" the retail level. Starting in 2013, permits for restoration work have been pulled to bring the structure back into line.
What it had become:
gsv
Pulling the stucco off to reveal the seven original arches, incredibly still there:
gsv
Done:
gsv
Unfortunately no one seems to know how to furnish the lobbies of these grand, old buildings (with the exception of me and
CBD of course), but otherwise the Guardian Arms is looking good, if not quite what it was when new:
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
The Guardian Arms at 5217 Hollywood Boulevard.
LAPL |
Omgivning's project page for the Guardian Arms
Guardian Arms website.
I hope someone invests some money in
Arthur Kelly's 1928 El Adobe next.