Fledgling L.A. ordinance revives an old idea: the small house in the city

NEAR THE END of 2005, when home prices in Southern California seemed to top themselves by the week, a property whose best days seemed long past appeared on the market in Silver Lake. Located on a hilly stretch of Maltman Avenue, just south of Sunset Boulevard, it consisted of 17 small bungalows, built in 1926 in a boxy, abstracted Spanish style and lined up along a narrow driveway.

By Christopher Hawthorne

June 5, 2008