3469 Rowena Avenue c.1928; H&H Design Group, Landscape Design 2011

3469 Rowena Avenue c.1928; H&H Design Group, Landscape Design 2011, a photo by Michael Locke on Flickr.

I have driven by this delightful Storybook style house in Los Feliz hundreds of times, fascinated by its charm. The house has a French Provincial aesthetic with its Normandy tower and steep gables wtih rolled eaves. It has recently undergone a facelift, highlighed by the lovely new landscaping and stone walkway, designed by Nicole Hammacher and David Hamre of H&H Design Group. Nicole writes, "the “Gingerbread-Design” house, built in the late 20s by the Disney Studios, can probably tell stories. As one tale goes, the Disney executives used the house to entertain their “mistresses”! When we removed the pre-existing plants from the front of the house, we discovered long-buried ‘20s ironwork and other charming details hidden behind the towering jungle of junipers and Birds of Paradise that had grown up and over the house. The multi-layered design includes a limestone pathway, courtyard, and driveway…a glass-and-iron, half-moon cocktail bar attached to the courtyard, custom-built by David, as well as horticultural elements of: rare, dwarf peppermint trees; specially selected Malibu boulders; a wide array of ornamental grasses; as well as an antique burgundy birdbath surrounded by butterfly-loving plants".