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Maycrest Bungalows
The Maycrest Bungalows are a rare example of a Tudor Revival-style bungalow court in El Sereno.
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Support community efforts to preserve the Maycrest Bungalows.
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Maycrest Bungalows, 2020. | Erik Van Breene/ L.A. Conservancy
Overview
The Maycrest Bungalows, one of El Sereno’s few remaining bungalow courts, has been owned by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for the failed 710 freeway extension since 1968 and has sat vacant since 1991.
Since 2007, community members in El Sereno have advocated for preservation and adaptive reuse of the Bungalows to meet residents’ needs. In June 2024, the L.A. Conservancy nominated the bungalow court as a Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM). HCM status would protect the building’s character defining features, and allow for new on-site development that is compatible in scale and aesthetics. Due to Caltrans’ delay in deaccessioning the property, the nomination is on hold at this time.
About This Place
About This Place
The Maycrest Bungalows reflect an important property type that combines density with affordability and community. The eight-unit bungalow court retains its original site plan, hardscaping, and architectural features where each unit faces into a central courtyard. The Maycrest Bungalows were constructed in the Tudor Revival architectural style, as evidenced by its steeply-pitched clipped gabled roofs, irregular form, decorative half timbering, and stucco finish.
While bungalow courts, a quintessential Southern California housing typology, once proliferated in Los Angeles, they are increasingly rare today. The Maycrest Bungalows are one of only three bungalow courts in El Sereno identified by SurveyLA as eligible for designation. The application of Tudor Revival architectural style to a bungalow court is also rare; no other Tudor Revival-style bungalow courts have been identified in Northeast Los Angeles, and only one Tudor Revival-style bungalow court has been designated in Los Angeles.
In the 1960s, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) acquired the Maycrest Bungalows and 500 more homes in El Sereno, South Pasadena, and Pasadena as part of a plan to extend the 710 Freeway. Community opposition to the freeway extension successfully delayed the construction of the freeway, but much damage had already occurred. Hundreds of residents were displaced, and many homes, like the Bungalows sat vacant as the legal battles dragged on. In 1994, the Northridge earthquake thrust Maycrest Bungalows into further disrepair.
The plan to extend the 710 Freeway, followed the logic of many urban planning ventures of the era: increase the flow of commerce at the expense of Black and brown communities. For the El Sereno Community Land Trust and their partners, the fight for the bungalows offers a way to make repairs for historical harm by promoting land ownership and self-determination for El Sereno residents.
The 710 Freeway extension officially died on Gavin Newsom’s desk in 2019. The next year, activists with Reclaiming Our Homes (ROH) brought the Caltrans buildings back into the public eye. Following Governor Newsom’s stay-at-home order, thirteen unhoused and housing-insecure families moved into vacant homes in El Sereno. They drew state-wide attention to the ways the pandemic exacerbated the homeless crisis and demanded public officials work to make these houses into homes. The El Sereno Community Land Trust proposal affirms their accountability to El Sereno residents and tenants organized with ROH and Untied Caltrans Tenants.
Our Position
The Conservancy has supported efforts to rehabilitate the Maycrest Bungalows since at least 2010. We believe the Bungalows demonstrate the role of historic preservation in repurposing existing community assets to create new spaces for connection.
In 2007, the Eastside Café, an autonomous cultural space in El Sereno, saw the Bungalows’ potential to meet community needs. They founded the El Sereno Bungalows Collective and conducted widespread outreach to learn what residents envisioned. The response was overwhelming: residents wanted to preserve and rehabilitate the bungalows as a cultural center. In 2012, we assisted the Eastside Cafe in applying for a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to complete a feasibility study to rehabilitate the property. However, conversations with Caltrans stalled and the Eastside Café was unable to purchase the property.
In 2022, the Eastside Café, now part of the El Sereno Community Land Trust (ESCLT), ESCLT released a proposal to transfer the Maycrest Bungalows and other Caltrans properties to community-ownership, sensitively add density, and ensure the properties would remain affordable in perpetuity. The same year, Councilmember Kevin De León released the Vision El Sereno plan where the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA) would manage the properties and add new units all with 55-year affordability clauses. HACLA has proposed to demolish the Bungalows and replace them with new housing units.
The Conservancy believes that there is ample opportunity to rehabilitate and modernize the bungalows to contemporary living standards, while adding new units of affordable housing on site.
How You Can Help
The Maycrest Bungalow nomination has been postponed. Please check back later for updates on how to support this effort.
