Much of commercial Van Nuys is in the worst condition of its 115-year-old history. There are empty stores, enormous parking lots with no cars, and trash camping everywhere.
What could replace all this and what kind of architecture would protect us from hot sun and occasional rain? The answer might come from Southern Europe.
Last year I spent five days in Turin, Italy, a metropolitan city of 841,600 in the NW of the country.
It has remarkable architecture, which was mostly built in the 18th and 19th Century by the Savoy Family in a unified, Neo-classical style.
The city has a series of arcades and long, shaded passageways, that protect from rain and sun. The arches along the ground floor provide a unifying effect that harmonizes all the buildings and anoints the urban environment with a regal and practical building style.
There are numerous courtyards, public and semi-private, which are encased by three and four story buildings.
East of the 405, south of Erwin, west of Sepulveda, north of the Orange Line are 12 acres of asphalt paved parking which was constructed in 2004 by Metro Los Angeles to accomodate a large of amount of parked cars that never arrived. These vehicles were, illogically, imagined to be driven by those bus riders who would then park their cars and take the Orange Line!
For many years, the car dealers of Van Nuys Boulevard rented the parking lots of Metro, in an obscene arrangement of prioritizing automobile storage over the needs of Angelenos who are ravenous for housing, parks and other uses of land which are not parking lots.
The auto dealers’ cars are gone. But the parking lots, weed-filled, empty, and providing nothing of aesthetic or functional use to the community, just sit and decay in the sunshine.
The environment around the parking lots is lovely to the north where the frequently filmed street of Orion Avenue presents an imaginary vision of Americana with its ye olde New England architecture, picket fences, and abundant rose bushes.
But Sepulveda is a mess. CVS (Erwin/Sepulveda) is a rundown, ugly, homeless encampment drug store, on its last legs, with empty shelves and anything on the shelves frequently swiped by shoplifters.
The 405 is the noisy, polluting, cancerous fact of life that provides deafening, daily helicopter, truck and automobile noise and air pollution to the community. It has been blocked out by sound walls to assure our waning sanity.
And to the south of the site where the empty parking lots sit, is the Orange Line Bus Route, soon to be turned into electric light rail line when a new transportation line is completed connecting Van Nuys Boulevard to Pacoima.
Everywhere there is trash, homeless, RVs, illegal dumping, tent cities, discarded fast food wrappers. The usual tale of Van Nuys and greater Los Angeles.
What can be done to transform 12 empty acres into something that enhances and uplifts our community instead of just using it for exploitation and degradation?
A possible answer is a residential area with parkland. These would be architecturally designed and environmentally friendly, and become an asset because their residents would assist in the care of this new neighborhood.
Family Run Parks
If the city were to devise a plan to have a family (which lived in one of the homes) run the upkeep of the park for a salary, based on a performance review, then it is more likely that the parkland would be cleaner, safer, and better maintained, unlike the sickeningly disgusting public parks that bring Los Angeles ridicule and shame like MacArthur and Westlake.
Having the people who use parks or schools clean the parks or schools they use, is something that the Japanese practice in their spotless country. It is an imported idea that could bring an upgrade to our city.
In any case, the transformation of the 12 acre parking lots should be done with sensitivity, care, and with the idea of providing recreation, housing, shade, and pleasant surroundings within a walk of public transportation.
To make these architectural renderings a reality, there will need to be rules, enforced rules, about what kinds of behavior will not be tolerated. This will perhaps be the most difficult part of the experiment, for we are far down on the road to hell in a city of red light runners, loud music, all night parties, marijuana moms, pizza boxes and McDonalds thrown along the curb, and the vagrants who ignite fires in the parks. To see discarded sofas and mattresses on the grass, or shopping carts with cans and bottles, and refrigerators on balconies will obliterate the possibilities of paradise.
There are currently vast expanses of unused asphalt parking lots that run along the Metro Orange Line. One of the largest of these is near Sepulveda and Erwin.
This area could be developed as a lovely, walkable, residential area.
Instead of the hot sun beating down on asphalt, wouldn’t it be nice to see the houses below which could be an enhancement to the community instead of the current blighted condition of the fenced off concrete?
It’s been perhaps 90 years since Americans built well proportioned classical houses.
These are houses where the elements are pre-ordained: the windows are aligned with each other, and are placed within the facade to achieve balance and symmetry. The doorway is defined, frequently in the center, and around it are placed ornamental designs originating in Greece and Rome.
Columns in the Doric, Ionic or Corinthian orders have specific instructions as to their placement. They aren’t just slapped onto a facade as we see in modern day Encino.
In California, when builders put up spec houses they are never able to afford classic design because the intrusion of garages destroys the facades. Ironically most garages never store vehicles but are a repository for storage.
The plain white stucco house with vinyl windows is the lowest and most ubiquitous type of spec house. About a dozen of these have sprouted up in my neighborhood in the last ten years.
There is obviously no attempt in these cases to make the houses attractive in a classical sense. They are rafters and insulation and stucco made for desperate times. Nobody can really afford to build them, and nobody can afford to buy them, so we have a sad story of expensive prices for crap.
The one on top is three bedrooms with astroturf patio and rents for $7,000 a month next to a graffiti splotched alley.
The exploitation of land to build exploitative housing that hardly houses anyone is one of the ills of Los Angeles. For there are enormous plots of parking lots and open land, especially near the Orange Line, where walkable, civilized and attractive housing can be built.
After spending time in Switzerland last year, I came back thinking of how well things are built there. Not only are they solid, but the housing is meant to enhance the community. Sometimes it’s starkly modern, other times it’s traditional, but it always makes the environment better.
Bremgarten, CH.Merenschwand ZurichLucerne
Why in this city, which invented Hollywood, are the visual arts of architecture and design so lacking in public view? Why do we live amongst so much ugliness?
LA Fitness, Sepulveda Bl.
Is there perhaps something in the past we can look to as we rebuild Los Angeles for the future? Perhaps we need Elon Musk to siphon off $5 billion dollars from somewhere and employ an AI architect to make LA lovely again.
Recently, a multi-family property, one lot west of Kester Street, came up for sale. And I saw it on Redfin.
14914 Sylvan Street was built by Mr. Leroy Dondelinger in 1954 and has a smart, Mid-20th Century modern look with solid brick, deep eaves and an angled roofline. There are multiple units on the property, making it suitable for owner rental income.
The asking price is $1.3 million.
Who would have built such a stylishly architectural building in this now forlorn neighborhood?
The bold design intrigued me.
I took a trip on Google to find out more.
Van Nuys Circa 1945
70 years ago, this part of Van Nuys, west of Kester, which had been covered in orange and walnut groves before WWII, was in the midst of a furious building boom. The old, walkable town, centered around the Valley Municipal Building, was no more. In the middle 1950s, the streets were widened. Victory Blvd became six lanes wide, old pepper trees were ripped to chips, and Van Nuys Boulevard was expanded to its current width and the streetcar tracks yanked out.
70 years of toxicity, speeding, accidents, death, aggression and mayhem is our inheritance.
LAPL: Widening of Victory Bl. at Columbus Ave. 1955.
We all live in 2024 now and have various explanations for the decades long, dystopian fall of Van Nuys. 14914 Sylvan is in one of the less expensive parts of the San Fernando Valley, and in this area, residents go about their lives behind iron gates, accompanied by big barking dogs, chopping helicopters and avoiding those wandering, lost people who have no home to call their own.
The 1937 San Fernando Valley Directory listed DWP lineman Leroy Dondelinger (b.4/15/1902, Colfax, NE/d.10/27/85 Santa Barbara, CA) and his wife of 12 years, Mary Ellen (nee Fridell; 1902-1980) living at 14545 Vanowen St.
The US declared war on December 8, 1941. Leroy would have been middle-aged, a father of two girls, and probably did not enlist for active duty.
The 1945-46 Van Nuys City Directory had Leroy Dondelinger at 14211 Friar St and mom Lovina Dondelinger (1876-1951) at 14217. But the 1950 US Census listed Leroy, wife Mary Ellen, and daughters Pauline and Joann at 14545 Vanowen.
In 1954, Mr. and Mrs. Leroy Dondelinger built a two-family $21,000 house at 14914 Sylvan St. for their family. Building permit says, “possible future triplex.” Practicality and financial astuteness won out for the power line technician and his progeny.
He seems to have done fine with his new house, and in 1957, 55-year-old Leroy built a $4,200 addition to 14914 Sylvan which included a back lot kitchen, living room and bedroom.
I searched newspaper archives for Dondelinger references, and by wacko coincidence, the fancy home of my neighbors at 14937 Hamlin was the subject of a 1948 Van Nuys newspaper story about “Impressive Fly-Up Ceremonies” conducted by Brownie Girl Scout Troops at the home of Lucile F. Days. Mrs. Mary Ellen Dondelinger was the leader of Troop 716.
60 parents and friends attended the twilight ceremony.
This home on Hamlin is still lovely, on spacious grounds. I’ve eaten Thanksgiving there a few times and walked through the landscaped estate with its fruit trees and swimming pool.
It once typified the aspirational possibilities of what could be achieved in American life if you were born of the right stock and knew the right people and applied yourself accordingly and carefully and diligently to work, family, education, and morality.
We are all lost now, damned and defined by something we cannot control, our identities.
The Dondelingers were motorcycle riders and owned the brand new Hydra-Glide Harley Davidsons. On August 15, 1955, Mary Ellen and LeRoy Dondelinger and daughters, Pauline Ellen (1936-93), and Joann (b.1938) set out on a California vacation aboard their Hydra-Glides.
In the April 1956 issue of The Enthusiast, Mary Ellen Dondelinger shared details of her and her husband’s 1,480 mile California road trip.
Leaving from Van Nuys, they packed their Hydra-Glide with a pup tent, air mattresses, sleeping bag, stove, white gas, dishes, food and clothing. She wrote about visiting their children and grandchildren, camping sites, scenic roads, and some of “the different expressions with which we were regarded by other tourists as we rode down the highway. Some looked at us in amazement, some in disbelief and occasionally in envy.”
Postwar Harley Davidson introduced the telescoping hydraulic shock absorbers to smooth long-distance rides. Industrial designer Brooks Stevens reconfigured the suspension, front fenders and headlight to achieve a look of grace, power and elegance for a mode of transport which many associated with low lifers, rebels and angry young men.
The Dondelingers, a wholesome looking family from Van Nuys, CA. submitted their road trip to The Enthusiast and gave Harley-Davidson a different image for their products, one that may have countered that which leather jacketed Marlon Brando projected in his hit bike flick, “The Wild One” (1953).
Harley-Davidsons became ever fancier in 1956 with the introduction of luggage racks, saddlebags, windshield and a tandem seat which increased sales and expanded the consumers to include traveling families like the Dondelingers.
Four years after their epic road trip, a wedding was held at 14914 Sylvan for Mr. and Mrs. Robert Maurice Fleming (Pauline Ellen Dondelinger).
Bride and groom honeymooned in the new state of Hawaii.
The bride was a graduate of Van Nuys High School and her husband was in school at USC majoring in biochemistry.
There are certainly other stories of the Dondelinger Family since 1959. I featured one small tale.
This is just a glimpse of a family, a house, another time in America, and a Van Nuys whose people and customs seem as different as a foreign country.
From the time it was established in 1911, Van Nuys was connected to the rest of greater Los Angeles by the Pacific Electric Streetcars that ran up and down Van Nuys Boulevard and traversed Chandler Blvd. to connect to North Hollywood.
The entire apparatus of light rail cars was dismantled by the late 1950s, and Van Nuys was wiped clean of these in 1956. Before the streetcars were taken out, Van Nuys had a thriving business district with diagonal parking, many vibrant stores, clean streets and a congenial sense of optimism and orderliness.
Van Nuys Circa 1945
On September 20, 1951, five years before their demise, an unlucky mother and son were involved in a collision with their car and one of the streetcars. It seems both mother and son survived.
Photos are from the USC Archives. Here is their original text:
“Pacific Electric versus auto (Van Nuys Boulevard and Hatteras Street, Van Nuys), 20 September 1951. Jimmy Quigley; Ann Quigley (mother); E.T. Ophus (motorman).; Caption slip reads: “Photographer: Glickman. Date: 1951-09-20. Reporter: Glickman. Assignment: Pacific Electric versus auto. Van Nuys Boulevard and Hatteras Street, Van Nuys. Passersby comfort Jimmy Quigley as his mother, Ann stands along side of him (in torn skirt). Motorman in picture is E.T. Ophus, who piloted Pacific Electric that hit Quigley’s car”.”
Here in Van Nuys 
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