Hollywood Renovation: Week 7

In this exclusive series for Dwell.com, Linda Taalman of Taalman Koch Architecture tracks the hands-on renovation of her and her partner's live-work space in Hollywood, California. Week 7: Flashback! This week’s post is a lead-up to the living solutions we will soon propose for our living and dining spaces. Since starting this blog post with Dwell, we’ve connected with individuals who have had a special relationship to Ellwood and the Courtyard Apartments. This week we had a visit from Frank Swig, the first tenant of unit A of the Courtyard Apartments, who lived here from 1953-1962. He shared with us his stories of living here as a bachelor in his 20’s when he came out to Hollywood to work at CBS as an art director. The CBS studios are only a block away and he was walking down our street one day when he saw a 'for rent' sign taped up in the window. Frank gave us a peek into the ‘Mad Men’ era he lived in and the style of the apartment at that time. He’s the second octogenarian we’ve recently met that has a strong relationship with this building. Al and Trudy Kallis, a couple who wanted to build one of our itHouses, knew the architect, Craig Ellwood, personally and they generously gave us an original copy of a rare Ellwood book with great photos of the Ellwood Apartments when they were brand new. Frank pointed to one of the pictures in the book and said, “See that in the upstairs window? That’s my easel!”