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Spotlight on Local Tudor Revival Homes

Photo of the Getty House, a Tudor Revival home in Windsor Square that also serves as the official residence of the Los Angeles Mayor, from the recent LA Times story.

While Los Angeles is quite famous for its Spanish Revival, Mediterranean Revival and Mid-Century Modern homes, its overall architectural mix is really quite ecclectic and many people may not realize that other distinctive styles – such as Tudor Revival – are also very well represented, especially in our area’s historic neighborhoods.

This past Saturday, January 20, the Los Angeles Times ran a story spotlighting Tudor Revival homes, which includes the Getty House, the official residence of the Los Angeles Mayor, in Windsor Square…among other neighborhood examples.

According to the Times’ story, Tudor Revival homes are “typified by an asymmetrical design that features steeply pitched roofs with front-facing gables, leaded-glass windows (often diamond-paned), arched doorways and massive chimneys as well as stone, brick or stucco exteriors with half-timbers gracing the facade.”

The Tudor Revival style, the story says, “arose in England in the late 1800s, as part of the Arts and Crafts rejection of both Victorian ornamentation and Industrial Age artificiality.”  The homes were also “Meant to evoke a quiet country lifestyle and the picturesque cottages of old England.” But also, it says, “after coming to the U.S. more than a century ago — somehow also came to embody wealth and Hollywood fantasy.”

The “fantasy” element seems to have particularly resonated in Los Angeles, according to the Times, because of the concurrent growth of the movie industry at the time many of these homes – which can be at once serious and whimsical, stately and warm – were built in the 1920s and ’30s.

The Times’ story also quotes a couple of Windsor Square homeowners, Caroline Labiner and Priscilla Wright, who have lived in and loved their Tudor Revival homes for many years:

“The houses are very warm and cozy, even if they’re large,” said Priscilla Wright, who has lived in her 1923 Tudor in Windsor Square for 23 years. “We really prefer a non-open floor plan; in our house, every room has a purpose.”

For more on Tudor Revival homes, see the full Times story at the link above.  You can also find some more specific examples of L.A.’s many Tudor Revival homes on the Los Angele’s Conservancy’s Tudor Revival page.

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Elizabeth Fuller
Elizabeth Fuller
Elizabeth Fuller was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN but has lived in LA since 1991 - with deep roots in both the Sycamore Square and West Adams Heights-Sugar Hill neighborhoods. She spent 10 years with the Greater Wilshire Neighborhood Council, volunteers at Wilshire Crest Elementary School, and has been writing for the Buzz since 2015.

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