Inside a Perfectly Preserved 1950 A. Quincy Jones Designed Home in Los Angeles | House Tour

L.A. has the most varied and impressive collection of residential architecture in the world. And that stems from the weather. It's very conducive to experimenting with architecture. You think all the way back to the Schindler house in West Hollywood where there are no bedrooms, it's just sleeping porches because the weather was so good year-round. To the creative, Los Angeles has always been a hub of creativity. So you brought creatives here that included creative architects and that included architects who wanted to build statement pieces for their creative clients. So that brought in a level of architectural variety and architectural intrigue that I believe that this city has in its residential collection of single-family homes. My name is Skyler and we are in the Grant House in the Crestwood Hills neighborhood of Brentwood in Los Angeles. And this was designed by Aquincy Jones in 1950. This home was a part of the Mutual Housing Association which purchased a large tract of land and subdivided it into 500 homes. Those 500 homes are a part of Crestwood Hills in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Aquincy Jones designed a bunch of different plans and allowed the members of the Mutual Housing Association, people call it the MHA, to choose the plan that most suited their lot. So this is MHA 302 which was chosen for a gently sloping lot which this lot is, hence the stairs down into the living room that matches the property. The original owners of this home were Ben and Bernice Grant. They moved in in 1950 right when it was built and Bernice lived here until 2018 when she passed away at 104. What made this house so authentic and original is it stayed with the original owner through such a long period of time. Then in 2018 another guy bought it and did a basically to the bones restoration of this home to bring back basically all of its former glory. An interesting example is right here in my living room I have a spectacular shade screen. That shade screen was originally designed in all of the Crestwood Hills homes and this is the only one that remains and it remains because it was original. You know the original owner lived there and and kept it, never felt the need to remodel it and remove it and it's one of the most special aspects of this home. There were originally 500 lots when it was subdivided back in 1946 to 1948. The homes started being completed in this section of Crestwood Hills and the first move-ins were in 1950. While they wanted to have 500 AQJ designed homes only about 120 were built and between 1962 and roughly 2005 when I would say there was a low point in modernist revival and interest homes had been altered and some of them have really been altered beyond repair. This is one of roughly 25 that remain in somewhat original condition and this one is truly original. These homes ranged in price construction price between roughly $9,900 and $15,000. It really just depended on the site and the level of grading needed and the size of the home. This is one of the larger standard plans and is still an original floor plan. The only change was that my front den was built converted from a carport into a den in 1958. So they did that the Grant family was expanding they needed a little bit more room that was turned into another bedroom and another small office space. Going in the front door the house is really separated as a front and a back but it's a front in the back of the from you're facing the front door which you enter on the narrow side of the house and you walk in to the right there's a den. A lot of these homes a lot of mid-century homes due to their modest size and modest scale like this one only have one living space and this one has two living spaces. It has my my living room which we're in right now and there's a den in the front of the house but that den is only there because they enclosed the carport in 1958. Then you go in there's a central walkway that accesses the two bedrooms the two bathrooms and my office and then you walk downstairs into my wall-to-wall you know mohair living room that also has my dining room and my kitchen all attached and it looks like a very small kitchen. I think it's funny I was walking through a house probably two to three weeks ago my friend who I was with was like this is a really small kitchen. I was like this is bigger than my kitchen and I've never had a need for more space and granted I can't cook for 25 people in that kitchen but for the scale of this house and for the you know for six eight people you can it's amazing what intentional architecture you can do in such a small space. Now these houses were designed again to be super economical to save money they didn't even have lighting plans so all of the lighting and all of these original AQJ homes were just lit up by lamps and lanterns and sconces there was no ceiling lights. Architecture is all about the details what's so amazing about this home is it's a it's a modest home it's it's three bedrooms two bathrooms right around 2,000 square feet and back in the day a family of five lived here. Ben Grant owned a small appliance shop and Bernice was a social worker this was a modest home by no stretch of the imagination and over time as home building has become more of an industrial process by making it an industrial process they take away a lot of the charm of housing but I guess that goes with the fact that the first two contractors to build Crestwood Hills went bankrupt so there has to be a happy medium but I don't know where it is. Another really interesting thing about this house is I have an office that's connected to my living space and there are some movable louvers that was an original design by AQJ and those basically open up and close between the office and the living space depending on what people use that kind of secondary small living space for. Since there are a number of the same MHA designs in this neighborhood like this different people use it for different things I've seen one it's like a little music nook I've seen it as a completely separate room and the louvers are shut closed as a sort of extra bedroom and oftentimes it's an office. One of the really interesting parts about this property is there's no backyard there's two large side yards. The unusual placement of this home on the to maximize the light to maximize the separation of such a small house I basically have a backyard for my bedrooms and a backyard for my public space. I as a developer would never look at a site like this and assume to put my front door where this front door is but it works perfectly. Living in this house is incredible you know I think the phrase indoor outdoor flow is overused in real estate especially in real estate sales but the connection with the large windows and the and the landscaping go going right up to the house really improves the living space inside this home and while I don't actually find myself going outdoors as much as I probably should the closeness I have with all the you know organic material right up against my house I think really makes this house feel special. I can't take credit for saving this home I think anybody who walks in this home especially right now when there's a heightened appreciation for mid-century modern architecture wouldn't want to change much with this house in terms of it holds all of the key authenticity traits that a mid-century home in Los Angeles would have however over the past three years I've been working with Cory Buckner who is an architectural historian and preservation expert and we have submitted this house along with two other homes in Crestwood Hills for landmark status with the Cultural Heritage Commission and hopefully at the beginning of 2026 we will get this home approved as a historic cultural landmark in the city of LA. Lautner is organic. Lautner is a dreamer. Craig Elwood is famous for having this big ego and driving all the fancy cars and you know flirting with clients. Aquincy Jones I would put at the same level of them but he seemed like a more normal and pragmatic architect and I am a huge believer in pragmatic architecture that you can make affordable spaces beautiful and this house while it might not be extremely affordable anymore due to the location was still a very affordable design and unfortunately over time as building regulation gets more stringent a home like this could never be built again because you have the amount of windows and the number of openings and the thickness of the roof no longer meet the requirements necessary to build new housing.