Family Neighborhood in Urban Setting : Windsor Village: Feeling for close-knit area goes beyond streets and houses to embrace a heritage.
In 1929, a Prairie Craftsman home now owned by Hugh Wilton was moved from its location on the Bullock’s Wilshire parking lot to its present site in the Windsor Village neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Built in 1913, the 4,000-square-foot house was purchased by his parents in 1952 for $18,000 in a probate sale. Shortly after he got married, Wilton, a policeman, and his architect wife, Suzie, bought a condominium in Santa Monica. But five years later they returned to the house he had lived in since he was five and which he co-owns with his mother.
Today, Wilton’s family also has three children and he hopes that some day one of his youngsters will continue a tradition of proud ownership.
One block east, Wilton’s neighbor, Bill O’Mara and his wife, Sharon, live in the house in which he was born, a 1926 3,000-square-foot Mediterranean purchased by his father in 1940. O’Mara, a financial consultant, says his feeling for the neighborhood goes well beyond a bunch of streets and houses, embracing a heritage upon which no price can be set.
Such coincidences of history and attitude are not uncommon in Windsor Village, an enclave of 900 residents about 15 minutes west of downtown Los Angeles.
Throughout the 1920s Windsor Village served as Los Angeles’ Westside. Seventy years later it remains an opportunity for many people to share a close-knit, quiet neighborhood within an urban fold.
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Located to the southeast of Hancock Park and west of Koreatown, the community is bounded by Wilshire Boulevard on the north, Olympic Boulevard on the south, Crenshaw Boulevard on the east and Lucerne Boulevard on the west.
A mix of housing characterizes the well-tended neighborhood. Blending with many older homes, bungalows and apartments are condominiums of much more recent vintage.
Home prices start at $325,000 and peak at $650,000, said Cathy Brown of Jon Douglas Co. Realtors. A home at the bottom end would probably be a 1,400-square-foot, early 1920 Spanish bungalow with two bedrooms and a den. In the upper range, a three-bedroom, two-bath house on a large lot with a pool and all the upgrades recently sold for $630,000. Most homes sell between $350,000 and $450,000.
A 1,200- to 1,400-square-foot, two-bedroom condominium sells between $250,000 and $260,000, said Deborah Bell of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate.
Currently, a one-bedroom apartment rents for $650 a month, with a two-bedroom going for $850.
Cathy Brown thinks the area’s stability explains why property values have always been lower than the Westside or the outlying suburbs.
“The data shows there is very little turnover,” she said. “I had sold a house on Windsor. The people had lived there for 40 years. The people prior to them had lived there 25 years. Then I sold a house across the street where my people were the second owners. It was a 70-year-old house. That’s almost unheard of in West L.A.”
A melting pot of cultures and races shapes the neighborhood, which has long been home to many attorneys and USC faculty members because of its convenience to downtown.
What brings many young couples to Windsor Village are relatively affordable prices. Rich Honn and his wife, Ann Snow, are a good example.
Eight years ago, Honn, an attorney and part-time USC law professor, had no intention of leaving his small home in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood when he visited a fellow professor, a 25-year resident of the neighborhood. After falling in love with his colleague’s English Tudor home, he and his wife decided to look around.
Noticing a “For Sale” sign, Honn recalls insisting they couldn’t afford the house. But a telephone call by his determined wife proved they could.
“In West L.A. or Beverly Hills this house would have been a lot more than we could have afforded,” Honn said. They paid $215,000 for their 2,700-square-foot Colonial home with an English garden. Cooperative financing on the part of the seller allowed them to keep their second home as a rental.
Honn likes the mix of old and young while especially enjoying the neighborhood’s broad ethnic spectrum.
“That is what attracted me,” he said. “Our next door neighbor is Korean. Our other next door neighbor is Estonian. We’ve got Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, blacks, Mexican-Americans. Our neighborhood is everybody.”
By all accounts, this is a friendly place to live. Block parties, Christmas parties and community picnics are highlights of the Windsor Village social calendar.
“I have seen people pull together to a remarkable degree,” said attorney Richard Goette, who with his wife, Holly Holyk, bought a 1920 two-story English Tudor home on a 50-by-175-foot lot 10 years ago. They paid $185,000.
Like most Windsor Village homeowners, the Goettes felt that they got “more for their dollar.” Likewise, they responded to the character and workmanship of the older homes. And notwithstanding a “four-year paint-stripping ordeal” to uncover the original mahogany initially glimpsed in the fireplace, Goette has no regrets.
“My wife and I can walk down the street with the kids and the dog. People come out of their houses to greet us. That is a wonderful part of life here.”
Renters are also likely to grow deep roots in Windsor Village. Occupancies have been known to last from 20 to 30 years. However, the stay of Sheila Clayton, who works in public relations, almost ended prematurely.
Soon after she thought she had found the dream apartment--a 2,600-square-foot unit with mahogany ceiling beams, hardwood floors, a brick fireplace and crown molding--she learned that the 1928 fourplex had been purchased by developers and targeted for demolition.
Clayton’s anger galvanized her into writing and circulating a petition throughout the neighborhood opposing the demolition of beautiful old buildings. With residents behind Clayton’s petition, a moratorium on construction in Windsor Village was pushed through the Los Angeles City Council by 10th District Councilman Nate Holden in 1989.
Since then Clayton has settled securely into her apartment building, which was subsequently bought by owners with a regard for the past. But the issue of down-zoning remains unresolved as residents and the city struggle to reach an agreement.
Hugh Wilton was a boy in the 1950s, when the majority of the present apartments in Windsor Village were going up.
“The developers were then only building two stories,” he said. “And they weren’t building these monstrosities that went property line to property line . . . as high as you can go. So nobody really got alarmed.”
Sheila Clayton agreed: “We feel (developers) should conform to the architecture of the neighborhood.”
A deepening concern over the alarming increase of crime in the area has brought residents together on another issue: the goal of becoming a gated community.
Bill O’Mara, president of the Windsor Village Community Assn., views this as taking Neighborhood Watch a step further. “We’re not idealistic enough to think that it’s going to stop (crime). All we want to do is to have the feeling that we’re in some kind of control.”
As a preliminary measure, barricades have been installed along Olympic Boulevard. The construction of two gates and a 24-hour security patrol are part of the eventual plan.
But for now, Windsor Village leaders are concerned about assuring the affordability of gates for all residents in the community.
Rich Honn, an association board member, sees the biggest challenge as the time-consuming nature of the paper work involved. “What we’re really doing is retrofitting a neighborhood as opposed to starting with a brand-new subdivision,” he said. “It’s getting people to sign the documents and understanding what they are signing.”
Honn, though, is optimistic about the undertaking. Recalling a picnic in the neighborhood park last year where 300 residents showed up, he said, “We had a lot of booths around. Some people talked about the kinds of gating. Others talked about the security that we could provide. A realtor talked about realty values. You get to meet your neighbors. We had a ball. The bottom line is that it is fun.”
At a Glance
Population
1991 estimate: 1,348
1980-91 change: +31.4%
Median age: 33.3 years
Annual income
Per capita: 12,345
Median household: 26,563
Household distribution
Less than $15,000: 22.5%
$15,000 - $25,000: 23.8%
$25,000 - $40,000: 20.7%
$40,000 - $75,000: 22.5%
$75,000 +: 10.5%
