By T.A. Hendrickson
The Cultural Heritage Commission (CHC) of the city of Los Angeles voted unanimously on Nov. 18 to consider the nomination of Throop House in Garvanza for Historic Cultural Monument status, the Highland Park Heritage Trust announced today.
The vote is an important hurdle to clear, but there are more hurdles to come. The next meeting in the multi-step process is a second hearing by CHC, probably in January 2022.
Located at 902 San Pascual Street, the Throop house is significant for its architecture – it is a so-called pyramidal folk house. It is also significant for its placement in the historic timeline of residential development in L.A.
Here’s how the Highland Park Heritage Trust has described the historical merits of the Throop House:
“Pyramidal folk houses in Southern California were never common, but the few that remain are rapidly being lost to development or insensitive remodeling. Throop House, the construction of which dates back to between 1880-1930, retains almost all of its original integrity and was documented by Survey LA as a “rare example of early residential development in Garvanza: one of few remaining examples from this period.” It lies on the Mary Throop tract and was occupied by Mary herself, who paid off the mortgage on the property and subdivided the tract.
“The Throop House is in the community of Garvanza, much of which is included with a large portion of Highland Park, in the Highland Park-Garvanza Historic Preservation Overlay Zone (HPOZ). The house predates the Townsite of Garvanza, which was subdivided in 1886. As such it meets criteria one for Historic Cultural Monument as one of the “significant property types (that) are representing important periods of early residential development in neighborhoods of Los Angeles.”
T.A. Hendrickson, a native of Eagle Rock, is the editor of the Boulevard Sentinel and a former member of the Editorial Board of the New York Times.
