Yesterday-tomorrow remodels

Sunset, May, 1988

Yesterday-tomorrow remodels

Western growth in this century demanded fast action to house newcomers seeking affordable single-family homes. The merchant builder answered the call.

On these six pages, we look at examples of three types of merchant-built housing that appeared in mass multiples at three different periods. They represented good living at a good price when they were new, and they still do today.

The difference is that today's buyers see these vintage spec houses--often in undervalued neighborhoods--as only a beginning rather than as the dream fulfilled. They buy with an eye to remodel.

Expectations have changed. Where a two-bedroom, one-bath house with a living-dining room and kitchen may once have been a family's dream home, today's Westerners want more--more space to be together, more space to be alone.

Two goals among buyers of these older tract houses are an informal family living area and a roomier master bedroom retreat. Updating and refurbishing worn-out kitchens and baths are constants, as is the desire to open the house to the out-of-doors.

Our examples, in the Los Angeles area, represent eras when that city's housing needs were especially acute. But they contain good ideas for remodelers Westwide--whether the bungalow is of Southwest Spanish or Northwest Tudor style, whether the "defense" house is in Long Beach or Oakland or Portland, whether the postwar house is called a "ranch house" or a "rambler."

The '20s stucco bungalow-- stretched out and opened up

Drawn by the booming oil, film, and real estate industries of the 1920s, more than 100,000 new residents had hit Los Angeles by mid-decade, when the house shown above was built. A 1929 Sunset described it as "the now-popular Mediterranean type . . . with an automobile drive running in along one side of the lot."

The 816-square-foot house had a front-to-back lineup of living room, dining room, and kitchen on the right side; on the left were a bedroom and a bath.

When Los Angeles architect Robert Anderson and designer Sheryl McKinsey set to work adding 580 square feet, they retained the charm of the living room, with its coved ceiling and sculpted fireplace, but replaced the front door with double glass doors leading in from an entry patio. They gutted the kitchen and dining room and expanded to one side to get an open area that's 22 feet wide. Glass doors open the dining area to a new wood deck, and a full-height glass panel next to the kitchen counter overlooks side-yard plantings.

Cabinetry is bleached and oiled vertical-grain clear fir with white plastic laminate counters. At the closed end of the U is a raised breakfast bar. Work lighting comes from recessed canisters in a dropped ceiling that continues around the edge of the dining area as a soffit with more canisters.

Behind the kitchen are a new master bedroom and bath. The floor here is tancolored concrete, poured continuously with an adjoining patio, then sandblasted. Four 8-foot-tall glass-paneled doors open the bedroom to the patio. Clerestory panels over the doors further open the room to leafy views. Skylights edge the back wall as well as the hall to the kitchen.

Anderson and McKinsey replaced all windows with wood-frame casements.

"Defense" house more than doubles, opens to garden

A "defense" house stays low in front, grows tall behind

With eight aircraft companies from Burbank to Long Beach, employment in area defense plants rose from 20,000 in 1939 to 243,000 by 1943. Built for workers at Douglas Aircraft Company, the 1940 house pictured above boasted a scant 900 square feet, its only luxuries "illuminated house numbers and a mailbox that puts mail right into your living room."

Owners Sosse and Greg Thomas, both graphic designers, wanted a sleek and airy house for themselves and their young son. Working with Los Angeles architect Don Swiers, they added 1,500 square feet--all in a two-story wing at the rear because they wanted to maintain the streetside scale of their neighborhood.

Alterations to the original house consisted of turning the entry so you no longer walk straight from the stoop into the living room, converting the old master bedroom to a guest room, and making the second bedroom into a dining room. They relocated the access to the kitchen, and updated the room with new tile, cabinet faces, countertops, and resilient flooring. To cut costs, the new wing's shape was kept simple, and bedrooms and baths were stacked.

The connector between the old house and the addition contains parallel corridors: a glass-walled gallery, and a laundry-utility-storage hall that gives the son access to the kitchen without entering the dining room. A stair in the new two-story family room leads up to a master suite with a balcony study loft and roof deck. To create front-to-back sight lines, the architect and owners aligned four sets of double glass-paneled doors. On this axis, one can look--and walk--from the new walled patio garden in the front through the living room and dining room, across the outdoor courtyard, through the family room, and out to the back garden.