.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; }.flickr-yourcomment { }.flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; }.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
4107 Troost
There are still lovely pockets of Los Angeles that seem untouched by time. 4107 Troost was built in 1936 on a 25,800 square foot lot, just to the east of Colfax Avenue. Its overgrown backyard slopes down to the concrete banks of the Los Angeles River. It is now for sale.
It is so old (71 years) that it was already there to witness the devastating February 1938 flood that killed 115 people and destroyed over 5600 homes. Three years later, the Flood Control Act of 1941 brought the concrete entombment of the LA River to fruition and allowed real estate development to proceed after the end of World War Two.
The home looks to be unoccupied. What one sees is a property of mature trees, a picket fence, and a wonderful hybrid blending of an American Ranch with French, Spanish and Western architectural features.
There is a sentimentality, emotionalism and fantasy life to many old homes in this old section of the San Fernando Valley. They are survivors of a time when horses and orange groves briefly lived next to automobiles and movie palaces. Los Angeles grew out of the movies, and the homes that were built here are cinematic in their storytelling.
But this property, like so many around it, will fall into the hands of the bulldozer and be subdivided into five lots of ostentatious and cheap ugliness. Hummers will sit behind electronic gates under the glare of halogen. Another corner of this city will be forever changed.
Here in Van Nuys 