{"nrhp_refnum":"05000070","name":"Avenel Cooperative Housing Project","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"2839-2849 Avenel St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Los Angeles","county":"Los Angeles County","state":"CA","lat":34.110162383000045,"lon":-118.26834570999995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2005-02-27","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A ten-unit attached cooperative housing project at 2839-2849 Avenel Street in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, designed by Gregory Ain and built in 1947. It consists of two five-unit, one-story buildings on two terraces.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is a major work of master architect Gregory Ain and a unique example of attached multi-family housing that fully expresses the International Style in Southern California. It is also significant as a social experiment in communal living shaped by the post-war housing shortage, built affordably with wood-frame construction and FHA financing.","narrative":"Ten families, many of them motion picture cartoonists, pooled resources in 1946 to buy a hillside site in Silver Lake and asked architect Gregory Ain to design affordable homes. The result, completed in 1947, is two terraced rows of five one-story units with cement plaster walls, flat roofs, horizontal window bands and curved service-yard walls. Each unit is rotated fifteen degrees to the lot line, giving a sawtooth plan, and opens to a terrace with views of the hills. Sliding interior partitions let a three-bedroom unit convert to two or one bedrooms. Financing came through an FHA Title 608 loan guarantee. The cooperative became condominiums in 1991. The property is recognized as a major work of Ain and as an unusually complete application of International Style principles to attached housing in Southern California. Later changes, including repainted stucco, replaced windows and enlarged terrace-side areas, are described as reversible and have not diminished the original design.","period_of_significance":"1947","architect_builder":"Ain, Gregory","architectural_style":"Modern (International Style)","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Still in residential use as multiple dwellings; converted from cooperative to condominium ownership in 1991. Some alterations are described as reversible, and service porch enclosures were removed from six units in recent rehabilitation.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:29.734202-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/05000070.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000070/b36df6b1fb-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/05000070/b36df6b1fb-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Doncram","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AvenelCooperative_2008_05_17_compressed.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Doncram</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AvenelCooperative_2008_05_17_compressed.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123858933","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenel_Cooperative_Housing_Project","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4828048"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/los-angeles-county/avenel-cooperative-housing-project-05000070/"}