The 350 that remain in L.A. are some of the city?s most desirable housing. Hollywood producer and writer Alison Bennett was intent on starting over when she moved into a 1920s bungalow court in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake. At first, she was enamored with her floor-to-ceiling windows and clear view of the ?Hollywood? sign, but she quickly learned that the true draw of the court was its residents.
?Most of the people living in the bungalow court were insanely good-looking couples in their late 20s,? Bennett recalls. Her tight-knit neighbors would hang out in the party-light-strung parking lot of the Spanish Revival?style court at all hours of the day and night. ?It was like a sitcom ? I was only a few years older than them, but I felt like the resident divorcée crone. It was like being stuck in Friends when you didn?t want to be in Friends. I loved every second of it. My girlfriends would come over and see all the hot people walking around and be like, ?What is your life"?? Today, roughly only 350 bungalow courts survive in L.A., but the sense of community and camaraderie among residents has made them one of the city?s most beloved and desirable styles of housing?one that some argue should be revived as a solution to L.A.?s shortage of affordable housing.
The communal experience was exactly what Kathleen McInnis was looking for when she moved into an early-20th-century bungalow court, surrounded by greenery and across from Paramount Studios, in ...