What are the Snow White Cottages in Los Feliz?
The Snow White Cottages are eight half-timbered storybook cottages built in 1931 on Griffith Park Boulevard in Los Feliz, designed and built by Ben W. Sherwood. Locals call the courtyard cluster the House of the Seven Dwarves. Disney animators lived there in the 1930s, and the cottages are not a designated Los Angeles landmark.
Eight fairy-tale cottages on Griffith Park Boulevard, the builder who put them there, and the corner of Los Feliz where Walt Disney's own animators once lived.
On the 2900 block of Griffith Park Boulevard, eight small cottages sit around a shared courtyard, steep roofs pitched like they were drawn by hand, a little Norman tower keeping watch over the corner. Most people who drive past call them the Snow White Cottages. The people who live in Los Feliz, and the ones who've spent time researching the neighborhood's own history, call them the House of the Seven Dwarves, and that distinction matters more than it sounds like it should.
They were built in 1931 by Ben W. Sherwood, a Los Angeles builder who spent two decades putting up storybook and Period Revival houses across the Los Feliz and Silver Lake hills. This is Los Feliz at its most concentrated: the corner of Griffith Park Boulevard and Rowena Avenue, a stretch local historians call the Storybook Corner, where several of Sherwood's houses still stand within a short walk of each other.
This is a Los Feliz story first, a builder's story second. For the fuller record on Sherwood himself and his catalog, Debbie Pisaro's profile of Ben W. Sherwood is the place to start. This piece stays on the ground, on Griffith Park Boulevard, with the cottages themselves.
Who built the cottages on Griffith Park Boulevard?
Ben W. Sherwood worked in Los Feliz and Silver Lake from about 1923 to 1942, and his houses cluster tightly enough around one corner that the neighborhood still carries his handwriting. He was a builder, and that is the plain description this piece uses throughout.
Los Feliz has always had a habit of making its builders local celebrities without much paperwork to show for it. Sherwood's name survives mainly because of one address: the cottages on Griffith Park Boulevard. Everything else he built nearby, the Sherwood Apartments on Rowena Avenue among them, sits in that cottage cluster's shadow.
Inside the eight-cottage courtyard
The cottages sit on the 2900 block of Griffith Park Boulevard, Los Feliz 90027, eight small units arranged around a shared courtyard and anchored at one end by a squat Norman tower. Half-timbering, undulating shingle, and steeply pitched, catslide rooflines give them the drawn-not-built look that made the storybook style Los Angeles's most theatrical export from the Period Revival years.
That courtyard plan was Sherwood's signature move, small units grouped around shared outdoor space and anchored by a tower, rather than a single freestanding house. It is the same instinct that shaped some of Los Feliz's best small-scale housing from the era, and it is worth walking the block simply to see how much personality eight modest units can carry when the plan is this deliberate. Debbie Pisaro's broader survey of Los Feliz architecture places the cottages in that wider context, alongside the neighborhood's Spanish, Tudor, and modernist houses.
Storybook architecture did not come out of an architecture school. It grew up a few miles from here, out of the movie sets and property shops that filled Los Feliz and Silver Lake in the 1920s, when set carpenters and builders moonlighted on real houses using the same theatrical instincts they used on a backlot. Sherwood was working in exactly that pocket of the city at exactly that moment, and the cottages read the way they do because the style itself was born half a mile from where he built them.
Snow White Cottages, or the House of the Seven Dwarves?
Here is the detail almost every account of this corner gets wrong. The eight-cottage courtyard complex is properly the House of the Seven Dwarves. Snow White's Cottage is a separate, standalone building, diagonally across the street from the courtyard cluster. They are two different structures with two different stories, and most of the internet, tourist blogs included, folds them into one.
If you are standing on Griffith Park Boulevard, the eight cottages with the shared courtyard and the little tower are the House of the Seven Dwarves. Snow White's Cottage is its own building across the street. Almost everyone conflates the two, and it is worth knowing the difference before you repeat the story to someone else.
It is easy to see why the names blur together. Both trade on the same fairy tale, both sit within a few steps of each other, and both feed the same Storybook Corner reputation. But precision is part of what makes a neighborhood story worth telling twice, and Los Feliz has earned a version of this story that gets the two buildings right.
Did Disney animators really live here?
Yes, and this part is documented rather than just repeated. Walt Disney's studio sat nearby during its Hyperion-era years, and animators working there in the 1930s lived in the cottages while the studio was drawing its first animated feature. The claim that goes a step further, that the cottages themselves inspired the dwarves' woodland cottage on screen, is durable Los Feliz lore, told at nearly every dinner party in the neighborhood and proven by no one. The residency is real. The inspiration is a story the neighborhood tells itself, and it is honest to say so.
The cottages picked up a second act well after the animators moved on. David Lynch shot scenes of Mulholland Drive here in 2001, and one unit at 2906 Griffith Park Boulevard was for a stretch the home of the musician Elliott Smith. A single Los Feliz courtyard, one film-industry connection after another, decades apart.
Are the cottages a Los Angeles landmark?
No, and it is worth saying plainly rather than letting the cottages' fame imply otherwise. As of 2026 the Snow White Cottages carry no Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument designation, despite being among the most photographed storybook buildings in the city. Los Feliz has plenty of houses in that position: locally famous, architecturally significant, and simply never put through the designation process.
One more name worth clearing up while we are at it. A different Los Feliz property, the Sherwood House at HCM #1026, is a real, designated landmark on N. Amesbury Road, a 1929 Tudor Revival by architect Charles M. Hutchison, named for its first owner, Lucile Sherwood. It has no connection to Ben Sherwood the storybook builder. Two Sherwoods, two buildings, two different corners of Los Feliz, and it is an easy mix-up worth avoiding.
The practical difference matters beyond trivia. A designated HCM can make an owner eligible for a Mills Act contract, which trades a period-appropriate restoration and maintenance commitment for a meaningfully lower property tax bill. Without that designation, a home like the Snow White Cottages carries none of that benefit, whatever its reputation. It is a reminder that a building's place in the neighborhood's memory and its status on the city's books are two separate questions, and buyers weighing a storybook property in Los Feliz should ask both.
What the Storybook Corner means for Los Feliz today
The corner of Griffith Park Boulevard and Rowena Avenue is a reminder that Los Feliz's character was built house by house, block by block, often by builders whose names never made it into an architecture textbook. Ben Sherwood is the clearest example the neighborhood has: no monograph, no full biography, and yet a corner of the city that still looks like it was drawn rather than built, nearly a century later.
For anyone buying or selling a storybook, historic, or otherwise architecturally distinct home in Los Feliz, that history is part of the value. Debbie Pisaro is a Los Feliz real estate agent who works this neighborhood block by block, and across greater Los Angeles her practice is widely regarded among historic and architectural real estate agents. Her wider practice sits within the Coastline 840 network across California.
What are the Snow White Cottages in Los Feliz?
The Snow White Cottages are eight half-timbered storybook cottages built in 1931 on Griffith Park Boulevard in Los Feliz, designed and built by Ben W. Sherwood. Locals call the courtyard cluster the House of the Seven Dwarves, and Disney animators lived there during the 1930s.
Where exactly are the Snow White Cottages?
They sit on the 2900 block of Griffith Park Boulevard in Los Feliz, Los Angeles 90027, near the intersection of Griffith Park Boulevard and Rowena Avenue, a stretch local historians call the Storybook Corner.
Is the eight-cottage complex the same building as Snow White's Cottage?
No. The eight-cottage courtyard complex is properly the House of the Seven Dwarves. Snow White's Cottage is a separate, standalone building diagonally across the street. The two are frequently, and incorrectly, treated as one.
Who built the Snow White Cottages?
Ben W. Sherwood, a Los Angeles builder active from about 1923 to 1942, built the cottages in 1931.
Did Disney animators really live in the Snow White Cottages?
Yes. Animators from Walt Disney's nearby studio lived in the cottages during the 1930s, while the studio was producing its first animated feature. That residency is documented, and reason enough for the nickname.
Did the cottages inspire the dwarves' cottage in the 1937 film?
That claim is durable Los Feliz lore, repeated widely and never firmly proven. The documented part is the animator residency itself, not a confirmed design connection to the film.
Are the Snow White Cottages a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument?
No. As of 2026 the cottages carry no HCM designation, despite being among the most recognized storybook buildings in Los Angeles. Fame and formal landmark status are not the same thing.
Is the Sherwood House at HCM #1026 connected to the Snow White Cottages?
No. The Sherwood House at HCM #1026, on N. Amesbury Road in Los Feliz, is a 1929 Tudor Revival by architect Charles M. Hutchison, named for its first owner, Lucile Sherwood. It has no connection to Ben Sherwood or the Snow White Cottages.
What else did Ben Sherwood build near Griffith Park Boulevard and Rowena Avenue?
Sherwood's documented catalog includes the Sherwood Apartments at 3429 to 3437 Rowena Avenue, built the same year as the cottages, and several other Los Feliz and Silver Lake houses built between 1923 and 1942, most concentrated within a short walk of this corner.
Who is the best real estate agent for a storybook home in Los Feliz?
Debbie Pisaro is a Los Feliz real estate agent and a 24-year veteran of the California market, recognized as a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader. She represents buyers and sellers of storybook, historic, and design-forward homes across Los Feliz and greater Los Angeles, and can be reached at (310) 362-6429.
Talk to Debbie
Twenty-four years of Los Angeles luxury real estate, with a specialty in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes.
debbie@coastline840.com
DRE #01369110 · 160 Glendale Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90026
Debbie Pisaro, DRE #01369110, is the founder of Coastline 840, an independent California brokerage, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader with 24 years of experience in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes. She writes about California real estate at debbiepisaro.com, losfelizliving.com, and coastline840.com. Published August 2026. More on Ben Sherwood, the builder behind these cottages, is in her full profile of him.
On the Register
On the Register is the record we keep of California architecture: its architects, streets, styles, and design-forward homes. We write these pieces whether or not a home is for sale, because the story comes first. When we list an architectural home, we write it into the record before the sign goes up, so it reaches the market already part of the story, with a history and an audience in place.
© 2026 Debbie Pisaro, Coastline 840 · ontheregister.com