The Lovell Health House in Los Feliz: Richard Neutra's Steel-Frame Landmark

Because it was built like a factory and lived in like a home. The Lovell Health House at 4616 Dundee Drive in the Los Feliz Hills is a three-story residence on a lightweight steel frame, finished in 1929 to a design by Richard Neutra. The Docomomo US register calls it a monument of the early modern movement in California and a recognized monument to the International Style. The City of Los Angeles lists it as Historic-Cultural Monument #123 and it sits on the National Register of Historic Places.

It is a private residence. Please view it from the street only.

Most houses of the 1920s in this neighborhood were framed in wood and dressed in a revival style. This one was framed in steel, skinned in sprayed concrete and glazed with factory window units. The Los Angeles Conservancy's biography of Neutra describes living spaces that seem to float above the steep hillside. That is the whole idea of the house in one image.

Richard Neutra was born in Vienna in 1892 and arrived in Los Angeles in 1925, after time in Chicago and at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin studio in Wisconsin, per the Conservancy's biography. The house on Dundee Drive was his first major commission after opening his own practice, and the Conservancy calls it a great achievement in steel-frame construction. Three years later the house was included in the 1932 Museum of Modern Art exhibit in New York that defined modern architecture for an American audience, per the Conservancy. That exhibit is the reason the house appears in nearly every history of the International Style.

Wikipedia's entry records that Neutra designed and built the house between 1927 and 1929 and that he served as the contractor himself, because residential contractors of the day were unwilling to build a steel-frame house. Docomomo lists the completion year as 1929 and Neutra as the sole designer.

Docomomo describes the construction in detail, and every part of it was unusual for a house in 1929.

• A steel frame. The three-story structure stands on a lightweight, shop-fabricated steel frame with open web beams.
• Prefabrication. Components were made off site, then transported to the hillside and assembled in place.
• Gunite walls. The skin of the house is Gunite, concrete shot from pneumatic hoses onto expanded steel, over an insulation backing.
• Factory windows. The sash are modular units adapted from the kind used in factories, combined with standard window units between the frame members.

Wikipedia adds that the house has about 4,800 square feet over three stories, that the exterior reads as horizontal bands of white stucco and metal lath, and that the site covers about two and a half acres. The Historic American Buildings Survey documented the house in measured drawings, which is how a building enters the permanent federal record. Docomomo sums up the result as industrial materials and practices adapted to domestic architecture, exposed rather than hidden.

Dundee Drive climbs the hillside east of Vermont Avenue, above Los Feliz Boulevard. This site uses Los Feliz Hills as the name for that whole hillside. The City's survey uses a narrower name for the heart of it, the Los Feliz Heights Residential Historic District, which the SurveyLA report for Hollywood bounds from Nottingham Avenue on the west to Vermont Avenue on the east. Dundee Drive lies east of Vermont, so the Lovell Health House stands just outside that survey district while sharing its slope, its curving streets and its Griffith Park backdrop.

It has landmark company on its own street. The City's monument list shows the Jacobson House at 4520 Dundee Drive as Historic-Cultural Monument #674, designated February 25, 2000. The City's survey of individual resources records 4100 West Dundee Drive as a 1928 Spanish Colonial Revival house by master architect Paul R. Williams. One short street holds a steel-frame modern house, a 1928 revival house by Williams and a monument from 2000. That range is the Los Feliz Hills in miniature.

Two designations sit on the address, and one City program can attach to it.

1. City Historic-Cultural Monument #123. The City's list records the Lovell House at 4616 Dundee Drive, designated March 20, 1974. Being on that list is what makes a property a qualified historic property for the City's Mills Act program.
2. National Register of Historic Places. Docomomo records the listing date as October 14, 1971.
3. The Mills Act. The City's Mills Act program is a revolving 10-year contract that can reduce property taxes in exchange for the owner using the savings to rehabilitate and maintain the historic character of the property. The City's 2019 program brief says the contract renews each year, transfers to a new owner when the property sells and binds every later owner. City and County officials inspect the property periodically, and the City may impose penalties for a breach. New single-family applications carry a $1.5 million assessed value limit, with an exemption path that requires a Historic Structure Report.

Here is what to do with that as a buyer or seller. Confirm the monument number against the City list rather than the listing remarks. Ask for any recorded Mills Act contract early in escrow, because it comes with the house. Ask the City's Office of Historic Resources what review applies before you plan a change to a steel-and-Gunite house that has stood since 1929. Our guide to buying a historic home in Los Feliz walks through each step. This section explains how the programs work. It is not tax or legal advice. For your own situation, talk with your CPA or attorney as well.

A house built from steel, sprayed concrete and factory sash raises different questions from a house built from wood and stucco. Here is a short list, stated as what to do.

• Ask for the construction documents. A house that was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey has measured drawings on the public record. Ask for them and for any later engineering reports.
• Ask who has worked on the frame. Repairs to a steel frame and Gunite skin call for people who have done that work before. Ask for names and permits.
• Treat the windows as part of the design. The modular factory sash is a character-defining feature of the house. Plan around it, not over it.
• Read the hillside. Docomomo calls the site dramatic. A hillside lot of about two and a half acres deserves its own inspection for drainage and slope.

Rooster Homes is a Los Feliz, Los Angeles real estate team led by Brandon and Sarah Arlington (DRE #02051216). We keep every landmark house in the neighborhood on one map, with its monument number and source, on our Los Feliz historic homes page.

Rooster Homes works from the record first. Rooster Homes is a Los Feliz, Los Angeles real estate team led by Brandon and Sarah Arlington (DRE #02051216). Brandon has been licensed since 2015 and holds the ABR designation for buyer representation. For a house like this one, that means the City list and the National Register entry come before the tour, along with any recorded contract. The tour is then spent on the house itself.

Our buying process shows where that research fits, and our post on the three kinds of Los Feliz luxury home explains how a landmark differs from a view estate or a village house. When you are ready, let us know what works best for you. We will coordinate our schedule around yours.