If home is where the heart is, where do those who are young at heart live? For the lucky few in Los Angeles, in the remaining storybook houses scattered around the city. Alternately referred to as fairytale architecture, storybook architecture is exactly what it sounds like: designs inspired by a fanciful distortion of medieval European cottages.
It rivals both Googie and programmatic architecture in its artistry and whimsy. But a style so rooted in fantasy couldn’t sustain popularity in reality for too long. In our final entry in the Los Angeles Architecture 101 series, we look at a brief moment when the pages of fairytales bled over into the cinematic dreams of Hollywood to create the most fanciful architectural style of all time.
The Impressions of European Architecture on U.S. Soldiers
The introduction of storybook architecture started when so many of LA’s most creative and exotic design styles sadly began: the end of World War I. Soldiers returned to the States with strong impressions of historic European cottages they’d seen while trudging through the wartorn countryside. But thanks to new technological advances in photography, they didn’t need to rely on memory alone.
Still, it takes a lot to bring a fantasy into the real world; in many cases more than a former soldier pointing to a clear photo of a Dutch fishing cottage in National Geographic. Fortunately, other strong elements were running parallel to this growing interest in antique European designs.
From Silver Screen Sets to Storybook Houses
The Hollywood film industry was building inertia at the beginning of the 1920s. Still rooted in traditional theatrics, an emphasis on elaborate set pieces inspired set designers to push themselves to new heights. Feeding the public’s fascination with exotic lands from afar, these set designers labored to recreate mysterious Egyptian pyramids, the ruins of ancient Indian temples, lavish Arabian palaces, and, yes, quaint medieval European inns. So, when soldiers came home pointing at photographs of European cottages while the growing Hollywood elite set out to differentiate themselves with eccentric, theatrical homes, set designers found budding careers as architects. Thus the pages of storybooks and reality blurred.
What Defines Storybook Architecture?
Storybook architecture’s heyday spanned through the 1920s and ‘30s like many of the exotic revival styles popularized in LA’s housing boom. It sought inspiration in the Provincial Revival style, though storybook architecture took the concept further. Imagine Provincial Revivalism reflected in a funhouse mirror. Though it wasn’t strictly an LA phenomenon, storybook houses were particularly popular in Hollywood thanks to the talents of those working in the movie industry.
With so much creativity behind this style, it’s difficult to pin it down with universal defining features. However, the following traits are heavily indicative of storybook houses and structures:
- Artificial aging techniques/intentional distressing
- Asymmetrical roofs, windows, and doors
- Design choices evoking medieval times
- Frequent use of cobblestones and clinker brick
- Half-timbering
- A multitude of gables, dovecotes, turrets, parapets
- A quirky, often merry sense of whimsy
- Sharply angled roof gables with swayback contours
- Uneven shingles reminiscent of thatched straw roofing
Proto-Storybook Houses
Perhaps the earliest example of storybook architecture in LA comes from Danish artist Einar C. Petersen. Built in 1921, Petersen Studio Court was born from an attempt to recreate the feel of the Danish fishing village where he grew up. You can still see it today, distinguished by uneven shingles and an asymmetrical roof line standing in stark contrast to the modern storefronts surrounding it.
Around the same time, the Hollywoodland housing development was underway, offering storybook homes to the LA public. Sure, the most notable remainder of that venture is the surviving Hollywood sign. But you can still find scattered conservative takes on storybook architecture remaining as remnants of the enterprise.
The Architects Working in Storybook Styles
As storybook architecture became more recognized, so did the architects specializing in its whimsical style. While several dabbled in the aesthetic, the leading names working in storybook styles around LA included:
- Hugh W. Comstock
- Walter W. Dixon
- Carr Jones
- Harry Oliver
- Ben Sherwood
- William R. Yelland
We’ve discussed Harry Oliver on this blog before, notably when focusing on his Spadena House (the witch house) in Beverly Hills and the delightful Tam O’Shanter restaurant in Atwater. Both are lovingly preserved authentic examples of the fantastic storybook style. But Oliver also designed the Van de Kamp’s Bakery windmills that used to crown their facilities all around Southern California. Though the Van De Kamp’s Bakery chain is long gone, you can still find a single surviving windmill atop what is now a Denny’s in Arcadia.
Oliver was particularly well-traveled, having spent significant time in France, Italy, Ireland, and England. Therefore, he had an intimate understanding of the European designs that had stirred so many soldiers’ imaginations. Oliver’s work may have been directly inspirational to Walt Disney as well. Disney and his crew were regulars at the Tam O’Shanter, earning their own designated table at the restaurant. And just a glance at Fantasyland in the Disneyland park will illuminate that Disney was a major fan of storybook architecture.
The High Price of Fantasy
Yet, even fantasy wasn’t enough to escape the Great Depression of the 1930s. With people stripped of affordable wages, celebrated design styles like storybook architecture quickly became passé. Recreating these fairytale cottages seemed poor taste when people were literally starving. While Hollywood set designs continued to provide the escape that people needed, homes returned to sensible forms. For the most part anyway.
Starting in the 1950s, nearly two decades after storybook architecture’s steep decline, fighter pilot and architect Jean Valjean Vandruff began work on the prototype for something his wife, Eleanor, called the “Cinderella House.” Unlike the storybook houses that preceded it, the Cinderella House was relatively affordable. Priced at just around $14,000, a Cinderella House presented tract-style housing in a ranch model with storybook flourishes. Several of these homes still remain across the state and even into the rest of the country.
But even more traditional storybook designs were constructed after the aesthetic’s heyday. Perhaps the most impressive example is a still-standing series of tiny cottages constructed in Culver City starting in the 1970s. Affectionately called Hobbit Houses, these were the passion of an artist formerly employed by Disney, Lawrence Joseph. While the exteriors appear to be plucked straight from the pages of Tolkien, the interiors explore Joseph’s obsession with nautical themes. You can still find the Hobbit Houses nestled amidst the more modern buildings that have sprouted up since their completion.
Open the Pages of Your Own Storybook Adventure
Los Angeles is one of the best cities for finding original storybook architecture still intact. Some of the more notable examples include…
- Charlie Chaplin Cottages – 1330 N Formosa Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046
- Cinderella Ranch – 9070 Lubec St, Downey, CA 90240
- Hlaffer-Courcier Residence – 2574 N Glendower Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027
- The Hobbit Houses – 3819 Dunn Dr, Culver City, CA 90232
- Hollywoodland Realty Co. – 2700 Beachwood Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068
- Original Hollywoodland Storybook Home – 3072 Belden Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068
- Petersen Studio Court – 4350 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004
- Private Residence – 8888 Appian Way, Los Angeles, CA 90046
- The Spadena House – 516 Walden Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210
- Snow White Cottages – 2900 Griffith Park Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
- The Tam O’Shanter – 2980 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90039
Happily Ever After…
It’s fitting that we end our long-running Los Angeles Architecture 101 blog series on a note that says “Happily ever after.” Because advances in architecture may have slow periods, but they never truly end. Not as long as people need places to live. And in California, there are plenty of people looking for a home. It will be interesting to see how the urgent need for housing shapes future architecture around the city, state, and beyond. But for now, we’ll satisfy ourselves with the rich history of the Angeleno architects who preceded us and made our city such an interesting place to live.
