Pico House, Los Angeles: architect, style and history

Pico House is a three-story, 33-room Italianate hotel that Pío Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, commissioned in 1869 from architect Ezra F. Kysor to serve the small town of 5,700 people then known as Los Angeles. Opening in 1870 as Casa de Pico, it was the most extravagant hotel in Southern California, with nearly 80 rooms, a courtyard fountain, and an aviary of exotic birds.

the building

The trapezoid courtyard. The building's wings form three sides of a trapezoid whose open end abuts the adjacent Merced Theatre, creating the courtyard that once held the fountain and aviary; the back of the hotel faces Sanchez Street.

the style

Kysor's Italianate design, with its large windows and grand staircase, was meant to project luxury for a frontier town — an early and prominent example of the style in Los Angeles.

the architect

Ezra F. Kysor also designed the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana, placing Pico House among his notable early Los Angeles commissions.

significance

Pico House is a National Register of Historic Places contributing property and a California Historical Landmark, and stands as one of the oldest surviving buildings in Los Angeles, facing the historic Los Angeles Plaza across from Olvera Street.

nearby

Spring Street Courthouse 0.1 mi · Streamline Moderne · 1940
Los Angeles County Hall of Records 0.3 mi · 1962
Los Angeles Union Station 0.3 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1939
Los Angeles City Hall 0.3 mi · Art Deco · 1928
Terminal Annex 0.3 mi · Moorish / Mudéjar · 1940
Caltrans District 7 Headquarters 0.4 mi · Structuralism / High-Tech

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