On the tour of KTown, it was fun seeing old historic buildings. 1929 wasn’t all about Art Deco, another style that was still being built was Spanish Revival, with a touch of Churrigueresque. Yes, that is a tongue-twisting word that means a facade encrusted with design details.
These two buildings are going through some renovation. Both are named for their developers – The Chapman Brothers, same ones that donated enough money to a small Christian college in Orange – so it was named after them.
The plaza was a first of it’s kind, all the stores face inward to a large parking lot. Good old LA, drive your car in, shop for groceries and then drive out again. The first Korean BBQ that attracted the general population of LA was here. Today the whole complex is restaurants and bars – and is very successful.
Across the street is Chapman Court, retail on the ground floor, apartments on the second. In some cases, the apartments were connected to a large studio – for a business or an artist studio. The tower was it’s own apartment, with tenants who only left a few years ago.
A local resident of Ktown walking by. The facade is made to look like stone, along with that heavy decoration – Churrigueresque.
The main arcade opened onto stores and went back to an open courtyard. The plasterwork is original, not sure about the paint, but it certainly fits in with the feel of the building.
Wonderful castiron design. The new style of Art Deco (or Moderne as it was called then) was all the rage. A new style doesn’t take over right away, many designers are still work in the old familiar styles.
Look at this metal work, so different from what we saw at the Wiltern.
An original storefront cut up into smaller rooms for Bank of America. Once again, even though they created drywall partitions, look at the care taken to cut around the column and the crown molding.
For almost 30 years the building was owned by one man, he lived in one of the apartments, where he paneled the whole place in wood. Although the library is full of law books it’s not clear he was a lawyer. Maybe he just chose law books, because they look good.
Another element that probably predated the paneling – an interior Juliet balcony.
The view from the tower apartment. This is iconic Los Angeles, palm trees as far as the eye can see.
Leah