“They pressed the bricks by hand, from the earth this house still stands on. That is not a finish you can order, at any price.”
- Sam O'Connor
2414
4th Ave
Los Angeles
Bedrooms
4
Bathrooms
3
Total Area
2,560 Sq. FT
Lot Size
9,387 Sq. FT
Price
$1,849,500
A Poet's House, Made of Earth
In 1922, poet Alice Lynch commissioned two of Los Angeles’s most particular builders to make her a house out of the ground itself. Architect Harwood Hewitt, trained at MIT and the École des Beaux-Arts, drew the Spanish Colonial Revival lines, while John Byers, the adobe specialist, formed the bricks by hand with his own crew, the traditional way, from earth. A century later the result is Historic-Cultural Monument No. 621, one of the very few genuine adobe residences left in the city, set into the West Adams Terrace HPOZ. It has since been updated with a light and knowing hand, which is the hard part, because the whole job here was to modernize a landmark without ever talking over it.
Listed by Molly Kelley and Daria Greenbaum, Compass
Inside
The entry sets the terms with original tilework and custom built-ins before the living room takes over: wood-beamed ceilings overhead, a floor-to-ceiling brick fireplace at one end, and hardwood floors that Hewitt milled from a single hand-selected tree, the kind of decision nobody makes anymore because nobody takes the time. Graceful arches frame the central courtyard, and French doors open the rooms onto it until the line between inside and out stops meaning much. The kitchen was renovated in the same spirit rather than against it, with custom stucco cabinetry, mahogany butcher-block counters, a built-in breakfast nook, and a pass-through window to the courtyard. The plan stays flexible throughout, its bathrooms brought current without picking a fight with the original rooms around them.
Outside
Outdoors is where an adobe earns its reputation, and this one is built around a central courtyard that behaves like a second living room with the roof taken off. Newly designed landscaping wraps a custom built-in seating area around a mature cactus so sculptural it serves as the yard’s centerpiece, with a quiet water feature nearby and an avocado tree that actually produces. There is a fire pit for the evenings and shade beneath the arches for the afternoons, which is most of what a Los Angeles yard is ever asked to do. The adobe walls handle the rest on their own, since the same earthen mass that built the house keeps it cool in summer and warm in winter with no system required, which is roughly a century of energy efficiency arriving early.
The O' Factor
Explore local lifestyle.
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The Homes we Represent,
Represent Us.
Every home has a soul. Every human has a place they were meant to be. Our instinct is knowing when the two finally meet. We honor architecture, preserve great design and celebrate the match. Welcome to O’Connor Estates. We’ve been waiting for you.
Proof is in the Properties
SOLD
Closed $200K over asking
SOLD
Closed for $1,589/sq ft
SOLD
Closed $250k over asking
