Pink Saturday - a pink door

It's Pink Saturday -  Beverly, at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you.

Click all photos to "embiggen"

 We recently took another stairway walk using Charles Fleming's book "Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles."

This time we walked through the streets surrounding Echo Park Lake, and especially Angelino Heights, a neighborhood of preserved historic Victorian homes.

This house, a classic 1900s bungalow, with its pretty salmon-pink door is on Kellam Avenue.

Its next door neighbor is also pink - I wrote about this little bungalow with carved garlands on a previous Pink Saturday. 

On this visit we found the homeowner out raking her yard, and chatted with her awhile. She's been here for many decades, and told us how local artist and resident Leo Politi used to sit and sketch the houses on the street.

Politi lived nearby, on East Edgeware Road, in a fine old Craftsman-style home hidden behind shrubs, orange trees, and bougainvillea. The City of Los Angeles has designated the Politi home, like many homes in Angelino Heights, a Cultural Landmark. For more about Politi's life in Angelino Heights, visit Big Orange Landmark's page on the Politi home.

We also learned that scenes from the recent film "J. Edgar" were shot at the house on Carroll Avenue behind her home - and that Leo Di Caprio was a real nice guy!

Google Map's street view of Carroll Avenue

 The neighborhood is so frequently used for film and location shoots that when I went to Google Maps to see a street view of the house she mentioned, I found a motor home, blocked-off parking spaces, and a snorkel-lift in the picture.

Kellam and Carroll Avenues have the largest concentration of historic home, with many house-proud owners already decorated for Christmas, like this witch-hat turretted house.

If you've ever longed to buy and restore a Victorian house, this is the place to come to see a collection of styles. From mansard-roofed French Empire to Greene and Greene bungalow, and everything in between, the neighborhood is a living museum of late nineteenth century residential architecture - in a wide variety of conditions.

Some houses are perfectly restored and maintained

Others are being worked on

Some are hidden away behind mature vegetation, offering only tantalizing and mysterious views of their treasures.

While others still are waiting to be rescued.

For a taste of Victoriana you'd never expect to find in Los Angeles, come visit Echo Park and Angelino Heights. You can follow my earlier visits to Angelino Heights HERE.

I bet the Christmas decorations are fantastic!