Out for a walk yesterday, I happened on this small industrial or commercial structure on the west side of Motor Avenue, a few doors south of National Boulevard. County property records give 1912 as the construction date, and while it could use a wash and a coat of paint or two, the details are marvelous. In this shot, note the transoms to the left and right; presumably the one over the middle window had to be replaced at some point. From the style featuring louvered panes I think it must have been around the middle of the last century.
Here's a detail of the door, whose structure also appears to be original pre-WWI vintage construction.
I only had my phone camera with me at the time, but when I have the opportunity I'll be sure to get more photos with the good camera, including a better general view of the whole building. I have no idea who the architect was, but from the look of it I believe there was an architect, possibly a big name in the field at the time. What I like most about this building is how the visible variations in pattern and texture on the facade seem to originate in the basic pattern of masonry work, rather than being pasted-on Revivalist features.
ETA 2016-10-18: I recently posted about this on one of the L.A.-themed FB groups, and thanks to one John Bengtson, author of a Harold Lloyd autobiography,
Silent Visions, we now know what the building's original purpose was; it was the Palms Bank. With that important piece of information, I was able to find this
LAT item on a 1922 robbery there. To read the entire article you'll need a
Times subscription, or access via a library account, but here are the headline and first few inches of type. The "boy" referred to in the lead sentence was twenty years old!
(Article accessed through my ProQuest account.)