Streetcar Depot, West Los Angeles, Los Angeles: style and history

Designed by J. Lee Burton in 1900 alongside the nearby Wadsworth Chapel, the Sawtelle Streetcar Depot served as the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad terminus of the Soldiers' Home Line, a spur of the Santa Monica Air Line reaching the Sawtelle Veterans Home. Passenger service ended around 1920, and the wooden depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

the building

A rare Eastlake survivor. Built in the Victorian Eastlake Movement style, the wooden depot also served the Balloon Route tourist rail line before the line's abandonment; its right-of-way was later sold off piecemeal, making restoration of the wider line prohibitively expensive.

the style

The Eastlake Movement styling, with its turned-wood ornament, was already unusual for a rail depot and survives here as a rare specimen of the type.

the architect

J. Lee Burton designed the depot in 1900 along with the adjacent Wadsworth Chapel on the Veterans Home campus; no further biography is recorded here.

significance

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, the depot is one of the few physical remnants of the Los Angeles Pacific Railroad's Soldiers' Home Line and Balloon Route service.

nearby

Wilshire Federal Building 0.7 mi · International Style · 1969
Strathmore Apartments 0.8 mi · International Style
Regency Village Theatre 0.8 mi · Mission Revival · 1930
Janss Investment Company Building 0.9 mi · 1929
Bratskeller - Egyptian Theater (Ralphs Grocery Store) 0.9 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1929
Sheats Apartments 1.0 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1949

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