LOS ANGELES The Robinson Residence was initially built for the first black physician hired at the Los Angeles County General Hospital and his wife, Doris Robinson, a prominent writer and TV/Radio Host. The Architect was said to have been a Black Architect; however, the original plans have only the initials “T.D” which is something that isn’t too out of character for a time when Black Architects had to study under white Architects and sometimes even had to hide behind the names of white architects to practice, We have since moved on from this style of practice, but we wonder how often and how much this happened.
The current owners of the Robinson Residence, Marc and Catherine, are history buffs and have completely fallen in love with the story of the home. They are doing everything they can to share its story and preserve its history. When they purchased the house, there were several things they had to do to bring it up to city code, which would have been a bit easier if they had taken away some of the characteristics that were initially built. Still, they wanted to preserve the legacy of the home. Today, it is one of the only modernist homes in a neighborhood primarily overrun by historic Craftsman.
Jerald "Coop" Cooper of Hood Century Modern shares the story of the home and its original owners.
Film - Mick Aure @miccck Producer - Elias Tebache @socalarchitecture Music - Deep Al Brindle @DeepAlBrindle Photography - Taylor Kealy @taylor_kealy Special thanks - Marc Johns and Catherine Gregory, alongside Jerald "Coop" Cooper
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This was a craftsman house, total demo.
When Dr. Robertson and Doris decided
that they wanna live here, they demoed the prior house.
This is the original build.
The original owner is Dr. Robertson.
During the construction,
they lived in the garage for 18 months.
My name is Gerald Cooper.
We're in the Robertson residence
in West Adams, Los Angeles right now.
This home was built in 1954
by Dr. John Robertson and his wife, Doris.
In North America, African-Americans weren't really able
to hold architectural licenses,
even though they were builders.
A lot of black architects just use abbreviations
for their names when registering
that they worked on the building as contractors as well.
But I definitely can see the design intention
in Dr. Robertson and Doris.
Doris Robertson was one of the 50s and 60s television,
like, I could only say, like, Martha Stewart, you know,
like, or Oprah of her, like, decade, maybe,
where she worked in this kitchen on television.
In starting Hood, Mid-Century Modern,
I started it off of wanting,
knowing a little bit about vernacular architecture
in the sense of what a modernist framework looked like
on a building, international style.
I could kind of sort of understand that.
I don't know where I picked it up.
And starting this account,
I never would have thought that people would hit me up
that also saw these things
or even had architecture design,
homes designed by an African-American architect
or with the design intent
from an African-American homeowner.
This is, right now, to me,
the most seminal reflection of modernism designed
by a Black person during the mid-century.
Dr. Robertson had a vision
that, right now, looks contemporary,
as you even sit in it today.
I show people a print,
and it's so...
Actually, the film that they used is so clear
that you couldn't tell if it was today or 1954.
I was made aware of this home
from me running the Hood, Mid-Century Modern
account on Instagram.
One of the owners hit me up and was like,
"'Yo, I have this home."
And he first showed me the pictures.
I was blown away.
I built a relationship with the owners
in a way of stewardship
and being able to share this home
and this design and intention
with thousands of people through my Instagram account
and introducing people to the Robertson residence.
Right?
Like, that's what I was able to do.
And it shocked me because,
you know, this was one of the first times on my account
where I was able to do that.
And for them to invite me to stay here
when I travel into Los Angeles,
you know, I just feel like it's dope.
And they let us do a open house here
to open a home to the community.
In March of 2024,
we did LA's first
black modernist
open house
with Dr. Robertson having
demolished his craftsman home
to build his specific modernist home
in West Adams, Los Angeles.
That made this home a black modernist home.
And I thought it would be cool
to do a tour.
And so I asked Mark and them
and they were down with it.
And we had five tours
on a Saturday or Sunday in March.
And people were blown away.
It was the first time that the public was in it, you know.
And people were blown away.
So once this study and the vigor
of these designers starts to get recognized,
this will be a big deal.
This guy who was a visionary of design,
when you look at this contemporary design,
it looks like it's new.
It looks like it could be now.
And he was a doctor, you know what I mean?
During the mid-century era,
there's been black designers,
African-American designers
and African-Diasporic designers
that have made pop culture design,
whether it be graphic or physical, industrial.
It's just been designers
that have not been properly researched.
And we wanna shine a light on that.
We wanna shake that up.
I feel like Getty and the National Trust's
partnership around black modernism
is a reflection of some of the work
that we've been doing.
And the more keen eye on the design
of African-Americans and the craftsmanship,
the arts and crafts era,
if you really think about it,
the people who were building just during that era,
like some of the Central and South Americans
have been building during this era,
the homes of the stock of America
have been African-American.
It's because of the labor force.
They were brought there to do that.
What we're working on achieving
is being able to identify these things
that we wanna preserve in our communities
that may be of specific design
or specific cultural intention of us.
I think that the current owners of this home,
they're like participants
in the preservation of this home.
There's always a need to show
and allow people to experience certain things
to create empathy for it or create a desire for it.
And for them to be so gracious
with just opening the home to people to see that
at their pace is just so amazing.
Owner's dedication to the restoration of this home
is very special.
In 1981, I think, so this home was just totally different.
Mark and Catherine looked at these photos
and put this home back together
in its original intention that we see now.
And I think that they're gonna be honored
and recognized later
because of the influence that this house is gonna have
in a black modernist canon
that's being recognized right now.
It's been amazing being able to show my friends
and family this space
and that also to be able to stay and live
and feel at home in this space.
And in this neighborhood, West Adams,
which is an historically black neighborhood
in South Central LA or South LA
or whatever everybody wanna call it,
this home is very unique.
It's one of the only modern homes that exists.
Like literally.
There's a, as y'all know, a Serrano on the street
and the rest of them are craftsmen,
which are also very beautiful.
Mostly craftsmen bungalows and also historically hailed.
So, and also mostly black folks, you know,
living in these homes.
And one of the things that I try to do
is encourage my brothers and sisters,
like my family and my community
to like understand where we're at
in the design, in the thing that shapes our existence.
You know what I mean?
That's part of my like, what I'm doing, you know?
There's James Garrett.
There's John Chase.
There's Nathan Johnson, Robert Taylor.
There's Paul Revere Williams.
You know, they, everybody's obsessed
with Paul Revere Williams, man.
Come on, bro.
Like, come on, let's get it.
Like, there's so many.
There's brother Henderson out of Denver.
There's just so many African-American designers
and sometimes they were relegated to WPA stuff or,
well, yeah, I mean,
they still were designing amazing pieces.
And then I also categorize black modernism
as design that was designed for us,
that we had to live in.
I consider that to be black modernism as well.
But I'm also open to a dialogue
of what black modernism is with the community
because it doesn't have a Wikipedia page, right?
Like, I want the community to say,
what is black modernism?
But we gotta define it.
We can't let these go undefined.
And I feel like part of my open house
and a lot of my intention,
just, I mean, passionately, but casually,
is to create an intention to these spaces
so they can continue to be recognized and researched
and then preserved.
That's cold, bro.
I'm cold with it, bro.
Hey, come on, man.
What are y'all talking about?
We in LA, like.
We in LA.
