It’s harder to research your own house

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Uncovering your house’s history sounds easy when someone else is telling you about where they live, but it can take hours of deciphering old building permits and trade notices—and they don’t always tell the whole story.
I’ve been trying to learn about C. Waale, the man who [...]

Turning the clock back 40 years on a Bluff Heights condominium

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Radios, ashtrays, vacuums, cabi-nets—everything looks fast in Long Beach Heritage president-elect John Thomas’s Bluff Heights home, which he had gutted three years ago and transformed from 1970s condo to 1930s-era Art Deco apartment. A photograph his partner J. Christopher Launi took of [...]

Four historic houses up for auction abound in classic features

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
The city Redevelopment Agency is taking bid proposals through Aug. 11 on four vacant, historic houses in the Willmore City Historic District, three of which it rescued from the West Gateway project.
So, hire a contractor to help, then bid what’s left after you [...]

Homegrown herbs, produce and fruit might just be easier than you think

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Forget for a moment the most compelling reasons to grow your own vegetables, fruits and herbs—rising food prices and spotty government inspections and regulation—and instead consider the conveniences that can be had by at-the-ready lemons, limes, rosemary and thyme: No more [...]

He’s moved out the toys and records, and the record industry anti-mogul’s digs are for sale

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
You wouldn’t have thought there was a house behind all those trees, and the giant giraffe on the old driveway didn’t exactly say, “Come in, stranger.”
But Denise Beck is a real estate agent, and a giant giraffe [...]

According to legend, this 1913 Swiss chalet-style bungalow was commissioned by a woman—but who was she?

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Neighbors think Wendy Harn paid the royal sum of $1 for this immense two-story 1913 bungalow in the Bluff Park Historic District, but they’re wrong.
“Wendy got the house for free,” all 3,287 square feet of it, says [...]

At age 65 in 1932, she commissioned one of the city’s most ornately-designed decorated homes

PHOTO by ZACK PIANKO
A childless widow with investments in the oil and movie industries, Minnie Butler must have been the youngest 65-year-old ever. How else to explain the way she spent the year 1932? At an age when many people were [...]

Where else is there to go when you have your own in-home bar?

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Apartments like the airy, two-story, three bedroom unit just off Retro Row rented by Susan Janz and Jennifer Celio can at once leave you feeling overwhelmed and pissed. Overwhelmed, because you realize this is but one of our city’s legion [...]

A meticulously-restored Bixby Knolls mid-century modern gets found in the details

PHOTO by EILEEN PUGH
It was as if they were restoring a killer 1954 Cadillac Coupe deVille. Virtually every metal component was pulled apart and hand-dipped in liquid alloy, the carpet was stripped and replaced to look exactly the same and anything worn was sanded clean [...]

Andrea Bell’s 1938 frame house is a sun-fueled, eco-friendly zone

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
It’s hard to believe, but up until about 10 years ago, Andrea Bell’s little yellow sun-powered house overlooked the Pacific Electric train tracks slicing Long Beach northwest to southeast. Now, Bell’s quiet dead-end street borders the Long Beach Greenbelt, which is what became [...]