The Mutual Housing Association

The Crestwood Hills community, known in its infancy as the Mutual Housing Association. The neighborhood’s survival is due in large part to the efforts of architect Cory Buckner, who relocated to the area with her architect husband, Nick Roberts, after a 1993 brush fire engulfed their Malibu home. In the last decade, Buckner’s custodial crusade has spurred the restoration of about half of the 30 extant original houses, 15 of which have subsequently been declared Historic-Cultural Monuments by the City of Los Angeles. Fittingly, her present home and office, 990 Hanley Avenue—one of the first structures erected by the Mutual Housing Association in 1947—perches at Crestwood Hill’s epicenter like an architectural Centcom.
Photos by: Darcy Hemley