'House of Tomorrow' for sale again

LAPL photoOne of the most unusual, and storied, commercial buildings on Wilshire Boulevard is back on the market. The one-story, ranch-style office complex at the southeast corner of Wilshire and Highland Avenue was designed (by Welton Becket's firm) in the 1940s as a model home for selling postwar families on the tract neighborhoods of local real estate pioneer Fritz B. Burns. After House Beautiful devoted forty-two pages to his Post-War House in 1946, returning GIs and their spouses paid a dollar each to see new gadgets like TVs, garbage disposals and air conditioners. When the novelty wore off, Burns retooled with updated features and reopened as the House of Tomorrow. A Korean-oriented realty firm bought the place in 2006, and now Curbed LA finds the corner is for sale again. "Rare Wilshire Boulevard development site," says the listing.

Noted: For those who grew up in that area, this is the corner where Burns used to display live reindeer on the roof at Christmas. Burns was a huckster of the old school who built a herd of reindeer to show off at his shopping centers, and inadvertently ended up with a huge herd at his ranch in the Valley that originally belonged to film pioneer D. W. Griffith. The herd was eventually culled, I believe.

1:24 PM Monday, January 7 2008 • Link
More by tag: Los Angeles | Los Angeles history | Physical Los Angeles | Wilshire corridor
Email or share:
© 2003-2008   •  About LA Observed  •  Contact the editor
LA Biz Observed
4:31 PM Mon | Weekend talks between the Service Employees International Union Local 1877 and the Building Owners and Managers Association appear to have...
3:30 PM Mon | Some of you might find it perverse to consider the economic fallout from today's disaster in China's Sichuan province, but...
Featured bloggers at LA Observed
David Rensin | Stop me if you've read this one: While rooting around in the spam mailbox looking for authentic emails that somehow...
Phil Wallace | The Lakers are challenged by Utah, while the Dodgers improve.
Sponsors
Jewish Journal logo
California Wellness Foundation ad
Playa Vista ad
Premium Blogads

 
Books, Blogs & Events

Get RSS Feeds
of LA Observed
LA Observed publishes several Real Simple Syndication feeds for easy scanning of headlines. If you wish to subscribe to a feed, most popular RSS readers will do it for you. You can also enter the web address from the XML button below or click on a specific feed. For more help with RSS, try here or here.




Add to Google