Hidden Oases
Movie stars have slept there, but the owner won’t discuss them. Nor does he say much about his garden, except that most of the plants are in their 70s and the fountain needs work.
Built in West Hollywood in 1928, Villa d’Este is one of the most glamorous of L.A.’s old courtyard apartment buildings. They were a practical yet elegant response to the housing needs of a growing city. Often designed in the Spanish Colonial style that appealed to Angelenos longing for roots, they’re scattered throughout Hollywood, Los Feliz and Pasadena. Set back from the street, hidden from prying eyes by walls and gates, their gardens are reminiscent of Spanish patios--leafy oases with spilling water, fireplaces and elaborate tile work. Amid these quiet pleasures, the thinking went, new arrivals to California could live healthy, and secluded, outdoor lives in the company of neighbors.
Today, though their bird of paradise may be tattered, the surviving gardens still have much of their charm--and many of their old plants. The Spanish garden (with its Moorish roots) was based on greenery, potted-plant color and fragrance. In L.A.’s apartment courtyards, the original greens were popular ‘20s shrubs and trees: camellias, azaleas, philodendrons, gardenias, yuccas, ferns, pittosporums and palms. Bougainvillea and cup-of-gold vines added color; so did red geraniums in containers.
Over the years, as plants have died, building owners and residents have plugged in new ones, sometimes altering the spirit of the place. Landscape designer Bruce Anderson did this in the early ‘90s when he lived at Villa Primavera, a 1923 West Hollywood complex where James Dean supposedly spent a year or two. Created by the husband-and-wife team of Arthur and Nina Zwebell, the apartments wrap around a shady court with a fountain, fireplace and brick paths. An old eucalyptus, bird of paradise, yuccas and flax presided when Anderson began, and he added agaves, rosemary, westringia, red fountain grass and lavender, along with other perennials and annuals. “I wanted to soften the garden and take it in a Mediterranean rather than purely Spanish direction,” he explains.
His approach was less radical at Patio del Morro, a nearby complex also designed by the Zwebells in the ‘20s. An evocative fireplace and reflecting pool were all but lost in the overgrowth when Anderson arrived in 1989, and he simply cleaned up and augmented the tropical frame of banana plants, philodendrons, yuccas and gardenias.
Villa d’Este remains similarly true to form. Designed by the architect brothers F. Pierpont and Walter S. Davis, the Italianate place has an atmospheric courtyard jungle with a potted fern or ficus left here or there by a tenant. But even more striking than the leaning palms are the water features, not all of which function now. When they did, water spilled from a lion’s mouth, circled the fountain and ran downhill to pour from a second lion’s jaws into a pool at the building’s entrance. Quite a welcome for the weary returning movie star.
