Hey, Ben here.
Most of what changed around here this month happened on the big streets.
Walk one block off any of those corridors, and it is quiet. Same porches, same parking habits, same neighbors arguing about the same tree.
That gap, between what the boulevard is doing and what the block behind it is doing, is where most of this edition lives.
Let's get into it.
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Neighborhood Happenings: Hollywood Blvd closes, and the Observatory opens its lawn
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What’s Going Up: Sunset and Hyperion both get fences
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How’s The Market?: Houses firmed up, small buildings did not
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On the Table: A Craftsman cottage starts its next chapter
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Ben’s Picks: $845 a foot, $1,459 a foot, and sixteen doors
A Street Closure, a Petting Zoo, and a Lawn Full of Telescopes
Every weekend left in August has something on it, and none of it asks you to leave the neighborhood. One of them closes Hollywood Blvd outright.
Los Feliz Art & Music Block Party + Mural Festival
The Los Feliz Village BID is shutting Hollywood Blvd from Rodney to Vermont for the day. Muralists paint live while seven acts play, with artisan booths and community tables down the block.
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Location: Hollywood Blvd between Vermont Ave and Rodney Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90027
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Date: August 15th, 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM
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Details:Lineup and details
Silver Lake Family Summer Festival
Jewish Silver Lake is running this one with a handful of local preschools. Bounce house, kids train, petting zoo, arts and crafts, pizza and ice cream, plus live sets from the Beat Buds and the Silver Lake Dads Band.
Two hours, aimed squarely at families with small kids, on the painted plaza at Sunset and Griffith Park Blvd.
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Location: Sunset Triangle Plaza, 3700 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026
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Date: August 16th, 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM
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Details:Registration information
Public Star Party at Griffith Observatory
Once a month the Observatory turns its lawn over to the local telescope clubs, and dozens of them set up for whoever wanders past. No ticket, no reservation, and the volunteers actually want to tell you what you are looking at.
Afternoon sun viewing runs through to almost ten. Take the DASH up from Vermont/Sunset if you would rather not deal with the lot.
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Location: Griffith Observatory, 2800 E Observatory Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
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Date: August 22nd, 2:00 PM to 9:45 PM
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Details:Event information
Back to two days for the first time since the pandemic, free and all ages, with rooms along Sunset and Echo Park Ave handed over to local bands for the weekend.
The lineup has never really been the point of this one. Walking to a show and walking home after is.
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Location: Venues around Sunset Blvd and Echo Park Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90026
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Date: August 29th and August 30th
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Details:Festival information
Sunset and Hyperion Both Get Fences
The Taix corner is finally moving. The restaurant served its last dinner at the end of March, the building it had held since 1962 has been razed, and Holland Partner Group is starting work on a six-story, 166-unit complexat 1911 W. Sunset, with a companion 49-unit building across Reservoir Street on the old overflow parking lot. Taix itself is slated to come back on the ground floor, patio included.
Why it matters: this stretch of Sunset was capped at three stories under the old rules. Density bonus incentives, traded for 24 low-income units, doubled that. Once one corner proves the math, every under-built parcel along the corridor gets re-underwritten, which is worth knowing whether you own a storefront, a fourplex nearby, or just like predicting where the next fence goes. The residential streets behind it stay on their own timeline.
One neighborhood over, construction has commenced on Silver Lake Flats at 825 Hyperion Ave, a six-story, 105-unit fully affordable building designed around a central courtyard. Same pattern, different boulevard: the corridors are carrying the density so the hillsides do not have to.
A correction, with thanks…
Last edition I wrote that Clover left Silver Lake after 17 years. Drea Valentine, one of Clover's original owners, kindly wrote in with the fuller story: the shop opened in 2001, was sold to its current owners in 2009, and held that same corner for 25 years before the move to South Pasadena.
The 17 years belonged to the second owners; the institution itself ran a quarter century. In this retail climate, that deserves both the correction and the applause. And keep the notes coming, this is exactly why I ask!
Houses Firmed Up. Small Buildings Did Not.
Last month's $3.3M Los Feliz average settled back to $2.8M, with price per foot down to $956. That was sales mix, the way I suspected, which is why both numbers stay in front of you.
The real split is by property type. Single-family price per foot rose in 90026 and 90039, while small apartment buildings fell in both. 90026 crossed $1,000 a foot on houses for the first time in this series at $1,001, and 90039 still leads at $1,072. Los Feliz is now the only one of the three under a thousand.
The 2–4 unit lane is where I would slow down. 90026 is carrying 52 active listings against 4 closed sales in thirty days, price per foot down to $528 from $647. 90039 went the same direction, $674 to $535, actives up from 18 to 25. Buildings priced off spring comps are sitting.
One caveat: 90026 condos, 90039 condos, and 90027 small buildings each closed exactly one sale this period. A single closing is not a market.
90027 · Los Feliz — last 30 days
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Single-family: $2,796,300 avg · $956/sq ft · 10 sold · 49 active
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Condos: $712,125 avg · $698/sq ft · 8 sold · 24 active
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2–4 Units: $2,150,000 avg · $605/sq ft · 1 sold · 13 active
90026 · Silver Lake & Echo Park — last 30 days
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Single-family: $1,600,794 avg · $1,001/sq ft · 15 sold · 51 active
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Condos: $515,000 avg · $536/sq ft · 1 sold · 7 active
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2–4 units: $1,515,000 avg · $528/sq ft · 4 sold · 52 active
90039 · Silver Lake & Atwater — last 30 days
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Single-family: $1,784,615 avg · $1,072/sq ft · 13 sold · 37 active
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Condos: $810,000 avg · $800/sq ft · 1 sold · 6 active
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2–4 units: $1,234,333 avg · $535/sq ft · 3 sold · 25 active
None of these averages know anything about your block, your condition, or your floor plan. Tell me the nearest corner and I'll put together a free Comparative Market Analysis priced to where the market actually sits this month.
A Craftsman Cottage Starts Its Next Chapter
Josephine has moved into the cottage near Sunset Junction that Bowery Bungalow kept for years, and the fit is good. Childhood friends Marco Gagliardi and Anthony Dragotto named it for their grandmothers, who shared the name, and built a small French-Italian dining room around classical technique and whole-animal butchery. Green leather booths, white linen, candles, and no rush.
Two ways to do it: the dining room and front patio run a six-course supper, while the bar and back patio keep a walk-in chalkboard menu for nights you decide at 6:40.
What to try:
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Focaccia with anchoïade
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Wild rabbit confit with labneh
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Buckwheat tart
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Steak frites
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Cherry tomato confit with fromage blanc
Location: 4156 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90029
Time: Tuesday through Saturday, 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Link:Reserve a table
One more spot worth knowing: I had lunch with a client at Maydan Market in West Adams a couple weeks ago, and this place is a great find. Think of it as a more curated, grown-up take on a food hall, with several different concepts gathered around one central hearth, plus coffee, cocktails, and a market. Plenty of options if everyone wants something different, but it still feels like an actual destination rather than a food court. Definitely one to add to the list.
One of Ours, the Rest Are Not
Disclosure first, because it matters. Live Oak is a listing our own team represents. The other three are open-market listings I am pointing at because they are interesting, not because I have anything riding on them.
Line the houses up and the per-foot spread runs from $845 to $1,459, which is the market section's argument made in three addresses.
Location:4300 Ambrose Avenue, Los Angeles 90027
3 Bed | 2 Bath | 1,199 Sq Ft | Built 1926
A Spanish house on a Los Feliz cul-de-sac, redesigned throughout, with the basin, the Hollywood Hills and the Observatory out the windows. Thermador kitchen, brass fixtures, custom tile in the baths.
At 1,199 square feet it works out near $1,459 a foot, well over the 90027 average, because on a small hillside footprint you are buying the lot, the outlook and the finish work rather than the floor area.
Location:1412 Laveta Terrace, Los Angeles 90026
3 Bed | 3 Bath | 2,130 Sq Ft | Built 1922
Fifty thousand more than Ambrose for nearly double the floor area, which lands around $845 a foot, under the 90026 average. Updated Spanish in Echo Park with exposed beams, a Miele induction cooktop, and a terraced backyard that was once a vineyard.
The converted garage has its own mini-split and reads as a home office. You can see the Dodger Stadium fireworks from the deck.
Location:1734 Redesdale Avenue, Los Angeles 90026
4 Bed | 3 Bath | 2,450 Sq Ft | Built 1963
A hillside renovation across three levels with reservoir and city-light views, Santa Barbara stucco, arched openings, white oak and microcement.
What matters more than the finishes: new electrical service, new plumbing, a five-ton split system, Low-E windows and a new roof. That is where the real money went, and it is the part nobody redoes cheaply later.
Location:5218 Live Oak, Cudahy 90201
Triplex + adjacent 13-unit | 16 Units Total | 14,917 Sq Ft Combined | 60,648 Sq Ft of Land
Scale, for the buyer who wants it. The triplex is offered as a package with the 13-unit building next door, two parcels sold together in a strong rental submarket with easy freeway access. Sixteen doors sitting on 60,000 square feet of land is a different underwriting exercise than anything else on this list.
Any of these worth a second look? Send me the address and I'll walk you through what I would check first.
Thanks for making space for this each month.
August's lesson, if there is one, is that the boulevards will keep doing the loud work around here. The blocks behind them change more slowly, and usually more honestly.
If something on your street has been shifting, or holding still in a way that surprises you, send it my way. I always appreciate the extra set of eyes.
Ben
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