Menlo Avenue-West Twenty-ninth Street Historic District

Menlo Avenue and West 29th Street in North University Park, Los Angeles, hold a district of 42 building sites, most of them large houses from the turn of the twentieth century. Thirty are counted as contributing, all built between 1896 and 1908, and they show Queen Anne, Shingle, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Craftsman and Classical Revival influences. The houses are wood frame, nearly all two to two and a half stories, and many keep scrollwork pediments, bracketed eaves, corbelled brick chimneys and shingle patterning. Edwin Rowley built several of them for resale, and architects Sumner P. Hunt and Wesley Eager designed the Crombie House. Early residents included businessmen, a physician and a girls' school. Over time many houses were divided into flats, some were damaged by fire or altered with siding and porch enclosures, and several were later restored. Nearby streets have lost most of their older homes to apartment buildings, which makes this block an unusually cohesive survivor.