Community Becomes Ethnic Melting Pot : Larchmont Village: Area’s transition from white bastion to cultural diversity was made while retaining small village feel.
The story Glenn and Maria Erickson tell of the purchase of their first home sounds like a fairy tale.
It starts with the elderly Mrs. Clasmeyer and her son who in 1986 sold them the 1922 California bungalow they were renting in the Larchmont Village neighborhood of Los Angeles. The Ericksons still express wonder at their benefactors, who set a price of $95,000, then carried the first mortgage with an interest rate of 7 1/2% because they “wanted a young couple to have a chance.”
Five years later, when they were ready to add a 1,000-square-foot second story and a pool, good fortune caught up with them again. Spared one of “those remodeling horror stories” by an excellent architect and contractor, their building team turned the job into “the experience of a lifetime,” Maria Erickson said.
Finally there is the village itself. The Ericksons say that the Main Street-style block of friendly outdoor cafes and laid-back shops that welcome foot traffic play an important part in their lives.
“Our children learned to read on Larchmont,” said Maria Erickson, a Spanish-language instructor at Santa Monica College. “We would take walks in the morning and point out letters on signs. The shop owners have seen them grow up. We know everyone. It’s the kind of place where someone puts money in your parking meter.”
In fact, Glenn Erickson, a film editor, added, one measure of their attachment to the neighborhood is now reflected in the floor plan of their house.
Against the advice of their builders, who felt that a second-story master bedroom suite would yield greater resale value, the Ericksons decided to put the master bedroom suite on the first floor and the children’s playroom and bedrooms on the second. Explained Glenn Erickson, “We didn’t fix the house to sell it. We figured that unless something strange occurred we might be here forever.”
Located to the south of Hollywood and east of Hancock Park, Larchmont Village lies tucked into the heart of Los Angeles’ urban quilt. Serenely detached from the surrounding hustle, it has for the most part escaped the attention of the larger world. Remarkably, too, it has held back time, retaining the scale and feel of the small town of Larchmont, N.Y., for which it was named in the early 1920s.
One of a cluster of communities that form Greater Hancock Park, its boundaries are Melrose Avenue on the north, First Street on the south, Irving Boulevard on the east and Arden Boulevard on the west. However, unlike its exclusive neighbors--Hancock Park, Windsor Square, Fremont Place--the smaller homes of Larchmont Village have traditionally appealed to first-time home buyers and families with young children.
A 1920s two-bedroom, one-bath home with hardwood floors and a fireplace starts at $289,000, said Cathy Brown, an agent for Jon Douglas Co. At $775,000, a 4,000-square-foot, two-story house on a 50- by 150-foot lot located within walking distance of the village typifies the peak.
Most homes were built in the 1920s as either a one-story California or Spanish Revival bungalow, she said. Additionally, many Craftsman bungalows are scattered throughout the neighborhood. Apartments make up a small share of the area’s housing.
The community’s history as a home to employees of the near-by movie studios is as old as the neighborhood itself. But its transition from a solidly white bastion to an ethnic melting pot is a fairly recent phenomenon.
“Larchmont Village reflects the diversity that is Los Angeles,” said Brown. “What’s interesting to me is that we have weathered change in a lovely way. There’s a real patina or softness about our community.”
After stumbling onto Larchmont Village five years ago, Adam Leipzig, a senior vice president for Touchstone Pictures, realized that it was the only place he wanted to buy a home. But with the birth of his second child, the need for space became a priority, and so he and his wife, Lori Zimmerman, have put their 1923 1,600-square-foot Spanish home on the market.
“It was actually a big tension for us,” said Zimmerman, a consultant for nonprofit organizations. “The houses that we could afford, that were available at the time, that were a short walking distance from Larchmont Village, didn’t have the charm that we liked. We ended up choosing a Spanish home a little farther away. But if we could have both I think we would be closer to Larchmont.”
What sold them on their Larchmont Village home was the living-room-dining-room area with its arch motif that repeats itself throughout the house. A floor plan that accesses all the rooms off a short hallway was another big plus. They paid $265,500 and are asking $359,000.
Time has only strengthened Larchmont’s aura. Said Zimmerman, “I’m on the avenue once a day, either as a pleasant way of walking my children or picking up something quick. It really comes to mind when I’m walking with my kids that they are going to feel like Los Angeles is a little village.”
Haines Wilkerson agrees. “I never dreamed that I would live on an ‘Andy of Mayberry’ main street with a gourmet wine shop and gourmet butcher,” said Wilkerson, an art director for a travel magazine. “You expect to run into Andy and the barber Floyd and Barney and Aunt Bee. Yet the people you run into are movie producers. They’re the ones with the gray pony tails.”
Six months ago, Wilkerson, 38, and his friend, Kirk Knudsen, 30, began planning their move to Larchmont Village when Knudsen’s grandmother had to be placed in a nursing home. Presented with the opportunity of cheap rent by Knudsen’s mother, they undertook the restoration of the home, a 1920s Craftsman bungalow.
In three month’s time they rebuilt the completely gutted house with the help of a contractor, preserving only the mantle, the dining-room wainscoting and the kitchen cabinetry. Rather than adhering strictly to the Craftsman style, the roommates sought a cozy, light-filled interior.
In the meanwhile, Larchmont Village’s benefits have been a welcome bonus. Said Wilkerson, “There is everything from the veterinarian to the dentist to the coffee houses. Restaurants are open late. It’s so nice to have a dog walk with a payoff at the end. You can go to Baskin Robbins--it’s a big watering hole--tie the dog to a tree and have an ice cream cone at 9:45 p.m. It’s really marvelous.”
The pleasures of Larchmont Village didn’t come as a surprise to George Plato, who grew up just three blocks from where he is now living. But when he and his wife, Marion, went house-hunting in 1981, they hadn’t counted on being able to buy a 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom, 1 1/2-bath home in the area.
“We just never thought that this being our first home we could afford the Larchmont area,” said Plato, a realtor who works in property management. “This was before the big boom. We were lucky.” They paid $161,000.
The couple looks forward to a longstanding Larchmont tradition on Sunday afternoons during the Christmas season, when merchants invite customers in for egg nog and cookies and carolers serenade passers-by.
Larchmont Village was as far west as you could go on the city’s trolley system in 1923 when Albert Dippell disembarked at the Hollywood Mineral Hot Springs at Larchmont and Melrose, recalls his son, Cutler. Two years earlier, Julius La Bonte had begun the commercial development of Larchmont. The senior Dippell, who became one of Larchmont’s first land salesmen, figured that since there was nothing beyond, it was a good place to start a business.
Others who had the same idea were drawn by advertisements such as the one in a 1921 newspaper. It promised “one of the best illuminated sections of the city” because of the floodlights installed on power poles down the middle of Larchmont Boulevard.
Later the broad, quiet street was recognized by movie-makers as an ideal location for the “Three Stooges” and Buster Keaton to lurch madly down in their Model A’s while dipping perilously among the power poles.
The 1980s have been marked by the disappearance from Larchmont Boulevard of old-time family-owned businesses, said Cutler Dippell, whose own firm, Dippell Realty, until its closure this year, represented the last surviving original business on the boulevard.
“Rents used to be very nominal on Larchmont and that is why you had so many of these little businesses,” he said. “ (Now) you have to be in a high mark-up boutique to survive.”
Two years ago the issue of preserving the village’s unique character was raised by the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Assn. To counter the growing influx of financial institutions and real estate offices--better able to afford sky-rocketing rents--residents worked, with Windsor Square and Hancock Park homeowners groups and Councilman John Ferraro’s office, to put limits on the boulevard’s uses.
“We created a zoning limitation to freeze the number of (banks, escrow companies, real estate offices and restaurants) so they would not freeze out the hardware store, market, a variety of other things we use on a daily basis,” said Adam Leipzig, one of the organizers of the Larchmont Village Neighborhood Assn.
“We don’t want this to be a regional center,” he said. “We’re built to be a community center. That is the way we want to stay.”
At a Glance Population
1991 estimate: 9,895
1980-91 change: +22.2%
Median age: 36.4 years
Annual income
Per capita: 14,846
Median household: 28,419
Household distribution
Less than $15,000: 23.0%
$15,000 - $25,000: 20.0%
$25,000 - $40,000: 22.6%
$40,000 - $75,000: 21.7%
$75,000 +: 12.7%
