The West Hollywood Preservation Alliance (WHPA) supports city staff’s recommendations and urges the Historic Preservation Commission at its October 28 public hearings to recommend to the City Council that the following two properties be designated as local cultural resources in the City of West Hollywood:
Item 9.A.: 8901 Sunset Boulevard, “The Whisky a Go Go Building.” All public comments heard at the previous Oct. 2 HPC hearing on this potential designation were supportive of designation. However, due to a lack of quorum, a decision on this item was continued to the Oct. 28 meeting. The WHPA reiterates its full-throated support for designating this property which, according to the latest survey of commercial properties, is that rare example of a “trifecta” in which a building is considered historically significant at the local, state, and federal levels.
Item 9.C.: 1251 N. Detroit Street, “Rare Craftsman Duplex.” Although scheduled for an HPC hearing at its August 26 meeting, the hearing was postponed and no public comments were heard although community members were ready to speak and supportive citizen position slips were ready to be submitted.
Back then and now, the West Hollywood Preservation Alliance firmly supports city staff’s recommendation to designate this property as a local cultural resource. WHPA has reviewed the 3 different Historic Resource Assessments (HRA) as well as the August 30, 2018, peer review memorandum from Chattel, Inc. Historic Preservation Consultants (see Exhibit F in the hearing packet). The Chattel Inc. review ultimately supports the thorough April 2017 HRA prepared by Leslie Heumann and attests to discrepancies and oversights in the both the Brooks and in the Kaplan Chen Kaplan HRAs.
The recommended designation meets historic preservation criteria in the municipal code. Particularly noteworthy, per the staff report on Page 6 of 7, is that “The building retains sufficient levels of all seven aspects of integrity and continues to convey its historic significance…It is one of the few remaining examples in the City that embodies the character-defining features of the Craftsman style that was once dominant in West Hollywood residential development during the first two decades of the 20th century. It is also a rare example of a Craftsman duplex in West Hollywood, a property type not abundantly built, and the survival of one with its character-defining features intact is noteworthy.”
Please place this message into the public record and make it available to HPC Commissioners. In addition, WHPA asks that the minutes of the October 2, 2019, be amended for Items 8.A., 8.B., 8.C., and 8.D. In the “Public Comment” section for each item, we ask that the sentences be amended to reflect that CHAIR LAJOIE or ACTING CHAIR LEVIN “read into the record the following individuals that completed Citizen Position Slips in Lieu of Speaking, and that these individuals supported the cultural resource designation.”
