Avenel Cooperative Housing Project
- Architect
- Gregory Ain
- Style
- Mid-Century Modern
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
The Avenel Cooperative Housing Project, properly known as Avenel Homes, is a 10-unit cooperative development designed by Gregory Ain and built in 1947 in Silver Lake. Ain fit ten identical three-bedroom units of 960 square feet onto two 60-foot lots, a plan later held up as an efficient model for low-cost urban housing.
the building
A cooperative under scrutiny. Of the ten original cooperative members, at least four, including actor Howland Chamberlain, were blacklisted or questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the project came to be described in some accounts as a communal experiment tied to left-wing politics. A resident and architect who lived there later recalled the original members as pioneering, politically engaged figures, and the units remained popular with progressive homeowners after the original cooperative dissolved.
the style
Ain designed Avenel Homes in a spare modern idiom, packing ten identical three-bedroom units onto two 60-foot lots as a demonstration of efficient, low-cost cooperative housing.
More on Mid-Century Modernsignificance
Avenel Homes is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
nearby
- Midtown School
- McTernan Residence
- Richard and Dion Neutra VDL Research House
- Lipetz House
- Lovell House
- Ennis - Brown House