Estate of Grace

When New York transplant Ian Wiener and his wife Jenny Heitz were deciding where to buy their first home, they envisioned a neighborhood with tree-lined streets, fabulous architecture and a rich history.

The couple found the East Coast sensibility they sought in Hancock Park, an exclusive enclave of 1,200 homes in the Wilshire District of Los Angeles. The area is known not only for its grand estates and strong sense of community but also for the movers and shakers who have flocked there for eight decades.

Wiener, a 38-year-old lawyer, said he and Heitz, 31, an advertising copywriter, chose the tiny area because it provides a pocket of elegance in the center of a sprawling metropolis.

“In Hancock Park, you have homes with character and you feel a sense of permanence and history,” Wiener said. “You don’t get that in Los Angeles very often.”

Wiener and Heitz purchased their four-bedroom, three-bath home for $615,000 in September. The 3,100-square-foot house features bright, spacious rooms with high ceilings, hardwood floors and built-in linen drawers and bookshelves. Arched windows in the living room look out on a courtyard garden and fountain.

Like many Hancock Park homes, most of which were built in the 1920s, the couple’s 1928 Spanish-style house had undergone only minor cosmetic changes over the years and needed work. The pair installed central heating and air, refinished the floors, restored the ceiling moldings and updated the plumbing and electrical wiring.

As part of the $50,000 refurbishing project, Wiener and Heitz removed dark woodpaneling in the den and discovered built-in bookshelves underneath.

“We felt like archeologists,” Wiener said. “But we’ve kept the bones of the house.”

Situated just minutes from downtown Los Angeles, Hancock Park is bounded by Melrose Avenue to the north, Wilshire Boulevard to the south, Highland Avenue to the west and Rossmore Avenue to the east. Along with the adjacent areas of Windsor Square, Larchmont Village and Fremont Place, Hancock Park is home to some of Los Angeles’ most influential and well-to-do families.

“The big draw here is the one-of-a-kind houses, which have character and great craftsmanship,” said Lisa Hutchins, a real estate agent at the Coldwell Banker North office in Larchmont Village. “Hancock Park is a leafy neighborhood where kids can play safely, and high-profile residents feel a sense of privacy.”

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Homes in Hancock Park range from $450,000 for a single-story three-bedroom fixer to $3 million for a 10,000-square-foot mansion with five bedrooms, six baths, a library and butler’s pantry, according to Hutchins. She added that many of the high-end properties occupy double lots.

The typical home was built in about 1925, is two stories and has three or four bedrooms and three baths in 3,000 square feet. It sells for about $800,000.

Many homes in Hancock Park have been passed down through generations, Hutchins said, and most have been occupied by only two or three owners.

Lucy McBain, a longtime resident, explained why residents tend to stay put: “We have a great lifestyle that is close to downtown, and you’re close to your neighbors,” she said. “You just don’t want to leave.”

Apparently not. The 61-year-old Los Angeles native moved to Hancock Park with her attorney father and her mother, a journalist, from the Los Feliz area at the age of 4, when streetcars ran down 3rd Street and children played ball on vacant lots.

For the last 16 years, McBain and her husband, Angus, an investment banker and lifelong Hancock Park resident, have lived two blocks from Lucy’s childhood home in a 10,000-square-foot English Tudor-style house with six bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

The property, which they got in a trade worth about $1 million, is now worth about $3.5 million. It looks out on the Wilshire Country Club, which abuts the backyard.

Angus McBain said that he has always been attracted to Hancock Park’s unique architectural heritage and continues to enjoy the neighborhood’s close community ties.

“This is an old-fashioned neighborhood with a Main Street feel,” he said. “Many places seek what we have, but few actually have it.”

Hancock Park originally was part of the vast Rancho La Brea, or “the tar,” deeded to Major Henry Hancock in 1860 by Jose Jorge Rocha, the son of a prominent Portuguese immigrant.

The large tract was later subdivided and developed by Hancock’s son, G. Allen Hancock, after he had extracted vast quantities of oil.

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Paul Williams, Roland E. Coate and Lester G. Scherer are among the notable architects who created the beautiful estates that attracted luminaries such as the Banning and Van Nuys families to the area in the ‘20s and, later, Howard Hughes, the Ahmansons and California Gov. Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

Longtime residents say the neighborhood has changed little over the years. One significant difference, however, is the willingness of today’s residents to embrace the area’s ethnic diversity. This represents a departure from earlier times, when the community enforced racial and religious covenants that restricted homeownership.

Once almost exclusively a haven for white residents, the area is now also home to African Americans, Latinos and Asians, particularly Korean Americans, who began buying homes in the area in the mid-1980s, according to Phillip Ahn, a Hancock Park Coldwell Banker real estate agent.

Today the biggest issue among homeowners is their desire to maintain the area’s architectural integrity. Always able to wield considerable clout at City Hall, residents are seeking to designate Hancock Park as a historic preservation overlay zone.

The designation, which must be approved by the City Council, would require that a local overlay zone committee approve residents’ plans to alter their homes’ exteriors, said architect Donald Christian, chairman of the committee seeking that status.

“Everyone benefits from preserving the architectural heritage of Los Angeles,” Christian said. “Most people here support the move.”

Among those who cherish the architecture are actor Joe Flanigan and his wife, painter Katherine Flanigan, who recently purchased their 1926 English Tudor-style home for $805,000.

Situated on an 11,000-square-foot lot, the 3,800-square-foot house has three bedrooms, three baths and a sun room that opens onto a large garden. The home’s vaulted ceilings and built-in bookshelves are among the features that attracted the couple, who became first-time parents in April with the birth of their son, Aidan.

The area’s low crime rate and proximity to Larchmont Village, home to mom-and-pop stores, specialty shops and outdoor dining, sealed the deal for the pair.

“I feel like I’m living downtown, which gives me the urban quality I like,” said Joe Flanigan.

Despite the widely held belief that Hancock Park’s proximity to downtown makes it a crime target, the area’s crime rate is quite low, according to Los Angeles Police Department statistics. One homicide, 27 residential burglaries and 51 auto burglaries were reported in 1999, compared to about 17 homicides, 746 residential burglaries and 1,554 auto burglaries reported in the entire Wilshire Division last year.

Longtime Hancock Park residents David Kirschner, a movie producer, and his wife, Liz, raised their two daughters there, and said that crime has never been an issue for them, even during the riots.

“It’s totally safe here,” Liz Kirschner said. “My kids rode their bikes all over and did all the things I did as a kid growing up in L.A.”

The couple, who have lived in Hancock Park for 19 years, bought their 10,000-square-foot house for $925,000 in 1986. The 27-room mansion, worth about $3 million today, includes a 1,200-square-foot guest house.

Like many Hancock Park residents, the Kirschners chose private school for their children, despite the excellent reputation of the local public elementary school.

Third Street Elementary School ranks among the top 12% of public elementary schools statewide, according to Principal Suzie Oh. The school scored 10 out of a possible 10 statewide on the 1999 Academic Performance Index, which ranks the performance of 7,000 schools statewide on the Stanford 9 test.

John Burroughs Middle School, which offers highly gifted and gifted magnet programs, ranked 7 statewide on the index, and 9 compared to similar schools. Los Angeles High School ranked 1 statewide and 4 compared to similar schools.

Residents say that no matter where the local children end up for college, many of them return to Hancock Park.

“I’m never leaving,” David Kirschner said. “We raised our kids here, we plan to grow old here and we want to fill the house with our grandchildren, too.”