Engine House No. 18
- Architect
- The Parkinsons
- Year
- 1904
- Style
- Spanish Colonial Revival
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
Engine House No. 18 is a 1904 fire station in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, designed by architect John Parkinson in the Mission Revival style. It served the city until 1968, sitting vacant for sixteen years before the Community Redevelopment Agency funded its restoration in 1984.
the building
A firehouse burglary. In 1932, former fireman James F. Fourong was caught burglarizing the station's lockers; he had previously looted other firehouses by phoning in false alarms and slipping in while crews responded to the calls.
Closure and revival. Budget cuts tied to the city's 1915 two-platoon ordinance shut the station along with a dozen others that year; it reopened in 1920, ran until 1968, then sat empty until a 1984 restoration contract set it on a path to reuse.
the style
Built in the Mission Revival idiom, the firehouse reflects an early-20th-century Los Angeles taste for Spanish mission forms even in municipal buildings like fire stations.
More on Spanish Colonial Revivalthe architect
John Parkinson designed Engine House No. 18 early in a career that would go on to include Los Angeles City Hall, Union Station, and Bullocks Wilshire, making him one of the city's most consequential architects.
significance
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the station survived a sixteen-year vacancy before the Community Redevelopment Agency signed a $28,000 contract in 1984 with architects Woodford & Bernard to restore and convert the building.
nearby
- Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building
- Frederick Hastings Rindge House
- Ramsay-Durfee Estate
- Eugene W. Britt House
- Lucy E. Wheeler/Martin E. Weil House
- Second Church of Christ, Scientist