Acres Away
Screenwriter Patricia Resnick and nursery school owner Gail Silverton went back to the future last spring when they bought a ranch-style home in Colfax Meadows, one of Studio City’s oldest neighborhoods.
Their home was built in the 1930s by the Westinghouse Electricity Co. as a showcase for electrical systems and other technologies developed during the Depression.
Resnick and Silverton paid $850,000 for the 2,600-square-foot home, which, like other original homes in the meadow, has soaring beamed ceilings, wood floors and a park-like backyard.
But the former showcase home was anything but that when they moved in. It contained exposed electrical wiring, antiquated plumbing and an outdated cooling system.
“We replaced a lot of the plumbing before we moved in,” said Resnick, who lists “9 to 5” and “Straight Talk” among her film and TV credits. “Thank goodness we could cook in the guest house when we tore up the kitchen.”
Updating the plumbing and electrical system was just a start for Resnick and Silverton, who eventually plowed $125,000 into the house to remodel the kitchen, add two bedrooms, repair the roof, landscape and erect a white picket fence around the frontyard.
In fact, the family--which includes Resnick’s children, Alexandra, 6, and Connor, 4, and Silverton’s kids, Annika Krankl, 10, and Nik Krankl, 15, three dogs and a cat--still had contractors underfoot eight months after they moved in.
They relied on an enormous backyard that features a guest house, fountain, swimming pool, trampoline and rope swing for escape from the endless sawing and pounding.
Colfax Meadows, for its mostly white middle- and upper-middle-class residents, is the next best thing to country living. There aren’t many curbs, sidewalks or street lights, and newcomers find it easy to meet old-timers.
The neighborhood of some 70 homes--bordered by Acama Street on the north, the Los Angeles River on the south, Beck Avenue on the east and Colfax Avenue on the west--is popular with people in the entertainment industry.
CBS Studios is nearby, along with trendy Ventura Boulevard and a strip of Tujunga Avenue some here call a “mini-Larchmont.”
Strong Schools Are a Plus
The area’s strong schools--Carpenter Avenue Elementary School in Studio City, Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood and North Hollywood High School--are considered pluses by residents. Carpenter scored well on the recent Academic Performance Index, posting a 9 out of 10 rating when compared with schools throughout the state and a 7 out of 10 rating when compared with elementary schools with similar demographics.
Walter Reed ranked 5 statewide and 5 compared to similar schools. North Hollywood High ranked 3 statewide and 7 compared to similar schools.
Colfax Meadows, first developed in the early 1920s, was named for Schuyler Colfax, U.S. vice president under Ulysses S. Grant during 1869-73.
Homes in the neighborhood are much in demand, said Elizabeth Nifoussi, an assistant manager at Prudential John Aaroe & Associates’ Studio City office.
“We have lists of people who would love to be in Colfax Meadows,” she said.
Homes start at $400,000 and can go as high as $1.5 million. A 1,500-square-foot home with two bedrooms and 1 3/4 baths sold last fall for $410,000, she said. Near the high end is a 2,600-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2 1/2-bath home that sold in October for $1.07 million, said Nifoussi, who has sold homes here since 1986.
When Realtor Patty Ray, 64, moved to Troost Avenue in 1960, she paid $37,000 for her 2,800-square-foot home. She estimates that the house is worth about $900,000 today. “It has a real country feel,” Ray said. “You feel safe here.”
Los Angeles Police Officer John Caprarelli, the senior lead officer for Studio City, said the meadow is “very quiet.” But like other neighborhoods nearby, it sees its share of car break-ins, he said.
It’s not just home buyers who covet Colfax Meadows. Developers also keep an eye out for “For Sale” signs on original lots, some of the last large properties in the San Fernando Valley.
Ten years ago, a developer bought one of the meadow’s original homes, tore it down and built nine houses. The move prompted the Los Angeles City Council to ratify a zoning change demanded by residents that allows developers to build up to four homes per lot.
When silent film star Mary Tomasini, 92, (known on screen as Mary Brian) moved into her 3,000-square-foot Colfax Meadows home in 1953 she kept two black sheep--Jezebel and Nicodemus--to clip weeds in her woodsy backyard. Her “neighbors” included Seymour the mule, chickens and miniature horses.
Tomasini is known for playing romantic leads in numerous films, including “Beau Geste” in 1926 with Ronald Colman, “The Virginian” in 1929 with Gary Cooper and “The Front Page” in 1931 with Pat O’Brien.
Maintaining Flavor of 1930s-Era Home
Mary and her late husband, George Tomasini, best known for his work as Alfred Hitchcock’s film editor, added a light-filled studio and a brick porch to the rear of their house. They didn’t have much furniture when they moved into the house, so Mary Tomasini improvised.
The walls and beamed ceiling in the front room retain their pink color and the green shag carpeting she chose when the couple moved in. Tomasini also bought second-hand antiques and refinished them--cutting an old kitchen cabinet in half to make two stubby end tables.
“I used to tease George about living in a pink house,” Tomasini said. “But it’s a homemade house.”
To cover the bare walls in the 1930s-era home, Tomasini, a self-taught actress, took up painting. Today her oils and watercolors, including portraits of Hitchcock, gossip columnist Louella Parsons and comedian Red Skelton, grace the walls. Her subjects range from her godson’s daughter to Philippine dancers, from Aboriginal babies to her late Hungarian sheep dog.
“Everything I do in each painting is for a reason because I’m teaching myself,” Tomasini said.
Tomasini’s 47-year tenure in Colfax Meadows is exceeded only by that of Cris Hewitt, 93, who has lived in the same house here for 65 years. Her sprawling estate, the work of architect Charles Matcham, was featured in California Arts & Architecture magazine shortly after it was finished in 1935.
The home, which gained additions in 1948 and 1973 to accommodate three generations of the Hewitt family, is built of hollow cement blocks which fared well in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The house also has open-beam ceilings and hardwood floors.
When Hewitt’s daughter, Sandra Shapiro, 60, was growing up in the meadow, she used to walk to school through neighbors’ yards and was kept awake nights by bright lights and noisy cap guns used during shoots for Westerns at nearby Republic Studios (now CBS).
“It was the most wonderful thing to be raised in this area,” Shapiro said. “We used to go to dinner and then reconvene at 6 p.m. to play hide and seek with the neighborhood kids.”
But it’s been hard for the meadow to avoid the changes taking place in the neighborhoods that surround it. Some of its trademark dirt curbs have been paved over and many residents have added to or updated original homes.
That’s what Kris and Ellis Reiter did. They spent about $675,000 for their 3,600-square-foot country-style home, which they moved into about 18 months ago.
The Reiters spent about $100,000 landscaping their backyard and redoing the pool, adding a patio cover, replacing the air-conditioning, repainting and installing new carpet and wallpaper in the five-bedroom, 3 1/2-bath home.
Kris, 59, a retired junior high teacher, and Ellis, 61, general counsel with CB Richard Ellis commercial realty company, say the home is perfect for barbecues with their three grown daughters and their families.
But shortly after they finished remodeling, the Reiters had second thoughts about living in a house that’s larger than the one they raised their kids in. They even put the 51-year-old home on the market for one day before deciding to stay put.
“It’s great for a vacation and great for grandkids,” Kris said. “Besides, it’s my dream home.”
Moving to the meadow was a homecoming of sorts for Kris, who lived here in 1944 with her mother and aunt.
“I have made a full circle,” she said.
