HCM #1025. A 1928 Spanish Colonial Revival house in The Oaks, built as a furnished model home to sell a whole neighborhood.
What is the Durex Model Home?
The Durex Model Home is a 1928 Spanish Colonial Revival house at 3410 N. Amesbury Road in The Oaks, the hillside enclave of Los Feliz, designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1025 on February 5, 2013. It was built by Durex Quality Homes as a furnished model residence, a marketing tool meant to sell buyers on the surrounding subdivision.
Durex was not a person. It was a builder. In the late 1920s a homebuilding venture called Durex Quality Homes, a subsidiary of the F.P. Fay Company, was selling lots in the hills of The Oaks, and it needed a way to show prospective buyers what a house up there could be. So it built one, furnished it top to bottom, and opened the door.
That house still stands at 3410 N. Amesbury Road. It was, in the language of the trade, a model home: a full-scale sales pitch you could walk through. Nearly a century later it is a designated monument, which makes it a rare thing, a piece of 1920s real estate marketing preserved as architecture. Understanding that origin is the kind of context a Los Feliz realtor brings to a house like this, and it is exactly what earned it a place on the register.
Who built the Durex Model Home, and why?
The Durex Model Home was built by Durex Quality Homes, a subsidiary of the F.P. Fay Company, as a furnished model residence to market its Los Feliz Hills subdivision in The Oaks. The house was designed by the Beverly Hills firm of Koerner and Gage, the partnership of Harry Garfield Koerner and William John Gage.
In the 1920s, The Oaks was new ground. Developers were carving winding roads into the hills above Los Feliz Boulevard and selling the promise of a house among the trees, close to the city yet apart from it. A vacant lot is a hard thing to sell on promise alone, so the builders did what car dealers and department stores did: they built a showroom. The Durex Model Home was that showroom, a finished house a buyer could stand inside and imagine as their own.
The staging went further than the walls. The house was completely furnished by the Broadway, the downtown department store, so a visitor walked through not an empty shell but a decorated home, styled to the tastes of the upwardly mobile buyer Durex was courting. It was a coordinated act of salesmanship, architecture and interior design and retail branding working together to move lots in a new subdivision. The house did its job, the neighborhood sold, and the model home stayed behind as the most literal artifact of how The Oaks came to be. You can read more about the neighborhood it was built to sell in our guide to The Oaks.
What makes the house architecturally significant?
The Durex Model Home is a strong example of Spanish Colonial Revival, the style that defined Los Feliz and the hills around Griffith Park in the 1920s. Because it was built to sell the style itself, it wears the vocabulary with confidence: smooth stucco walls, red clay tile roofs, arched doorways and windows, and the low, sun-shaped massing that suited Southern California's climate.
The choice of style was a sales decision as much as an aesthetic one. Spanish Colonial Revival was the look of the moment, marketed as a stylish, modern, distinctly Californian alternative to the older American house. A buyer touring the Durex Model Home in 1928 was being sold not just a floor plan but an identity, the idea of living in a home that belonged to this place and this era. That the house still reads clearly as that pitch, nearly a hundred years on, is part of why the city preserved it.
Designed by Koerner and Gage, the Durex Model Home sits among the neighborhood's other 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival monuments. The nearby Abraham Gore Residence is a close cousin from the same hillside and the same decade. So is the Paul Lauritz House, a painter's home built a few years earlier in 1921. The Oaks sits beside Laughlin Park, the gated enclave of Los Feliz's grandest estates, and shares the hillside with landmarks like the Castle on Glendower, the work of architect A.F. Leicht. The house is a vivid example of the Spanish Colonial Revival chapter in the LA house styles buyers fall for. For the whole set, our Los Feliz HCM guide maps every designated home in Los Feliz. The designation is documented in the city's Los Feliz Improvement Association record, and the Pacific Coast Architecture Database adds the architectural detail.
What does HCM #1025 mean for the home today?
Historic-Cultural Monument status is Los Angeles's oldest form of landmark protection. For the Durex Model Home, the designation recognizes both the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture and the home's unusual role as a surviving model residence from the development of The Oaks. That status carries real, practical weight for anyone who owns the house or hopes to.
The most tangible benefit is the Mills Act, California's leading incentive for historic preservation. In exchange for a commitment to maintain and preserve the property, a Mills Act contract can cut a landmark owner's property taxes by a meaningful margin, often enough to change the math on a purchase. On a designated Los Feliz home it is one of the first things a serious buyer asks Debbie Pisaro to model, and it is a central issue when selling a Mills Act or HCM home in Los Feliz.
HCM status in Los Angeles does not freeze a house in place. It reviews exterior changes and offers Mills Act tax relief to qualifying owners, while interior work is generally allowed. For a landmark like this one, it tends to shape value more than it limits it.
Designation also changes how a home is bought and sold. It affects what an owner may alter, how exterior work is reviewed, and how the property reaches the narrow pool of buyers who value provenance and architecture. Pricing a monument is not the same as pricing the house next door. A house built as a sales tool that became a monument is a genuine value story, and it rewards an agent who can read both the market and the provenance.
This is the kind of house Debbie Pisaro is built to represent. She works these homes as an architectural homes specialist across the east side and beyond. Her brokerage, Coastline 840, is an independent boutique built on the belief that small teams outperform the big-box brokerages. She tells the story of why she built it on the Coastline 840 blog. If you own a Los Feliz landmark and are weighing a sale, the first step is a real number grounded in current comps, which you can request through a private Los Feliz home valuation. If you would rather buy in The Oaks, a Los Feliz realtor who works these blocks keeps a quiet list of off-market Los Feliz homes that never reach the open market. Either way, the best real estate agent in Los Feliz for architectural property is where the search should start.
Durex Model Home questions, answered
Where is the Durex Model Home in Los Feliz?
The Durex Model Home stands at 3410 N. Amesbury Road in The Oaks, the hillside enclave of Los Feliz, Los Angeles, CA 90027. It is a private residence rather than a museum, so it is best appreciated from the public street rather than up close, in keeping with the quiet character of The Oaks.
What was Durex Quality Homes?
Durex Quality Homes was a homebuilding venture, a subsidiary of the F.P. Fay Company, that developed and sold houses in Los Feliz in the late 1920s. The name refers to the builder, not a person or a family. Its model home at 3410 N. Amesbury Road is now Historic-Cultural Monument #1025.
Why did Durex build a model home in The Oaks?
Durex Quality Homes built the house as a furnished model residence to market its Los Feliz Hills subdivision in The Oaks. A finished, decorated home let prospective buyers walk through and picture the lifestyle on offer, which was far more persuasive than selling empty hillside lots on promise alone.
What style is the Durex Model Home?
The Durex Model Home is Spanish Colonial Revival, the dominant Los Feliz style of the 1920s. It carries the era's signatures: smooth stucco walls, red clay tile roofs, arched doorways and windows, and low Mediterranean massing. Because the house was built to sell the style, it presents that vocabulary with real confidence.
Can the Durex Model Home qualify for the Mills Act?
As a designated Historic-Cultural Monument, the house is generally eligible to apply for a Mills Act contract, which can significantly lower property taxes in exchange for a preservation commitment. Eligibility and the exact savings depend on the property and the current program terms, so any buyer should verify the specifics before relying on them.
Who designed the Durex Model Home?
The house was designed by the Beverly Hills architecture firm of Koerner and Gage, the partnership of Harry Garfield Koerner and William John Gage. Durex Quality Homes, a subsidiary of the F.P. Fay Company, was the builder and developer, and the downtown Broadway department store furnished the finished model for showings.
Who is a good Los Feliz real estate agent for historic homes?
Debbie Pisaro is a 24-year veteran, founder of Coastline 840, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader, representing buyers and sellers across Los Feliz and the surrounding neighborhoods. She specializes in architectural, historic, and Historic-Cultural Monument homes, and she works The Oaks and the wider Los Feliz market street by street.
Is it for sale?
The Durex Model Home is a private residence and is not typically on the market. If you are hoping to buy an architectural or landmark home in The Oaks or elsewhere in Los Feliz, including quiet off-market opportunities, that is a search best run with an agent who specializes in this narrow niche.
How large is the house?
The Durex Model Home measures roughly 3,438 square feet, with five bedrooms and three bathrooms in its current configuration. That is generous for a model home of the late 1920s, which fits its purpose: Durex needed a house impressive enough to sell buyers on the whole hillside subdivision around it.
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 July 2026.
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
The Durex Model Home is one of the Spanish-era monuments in The Oaks. It is one of more than fifty Historic-Cultural Monuments in Los Feliz. For the full overview, see the Los Feliz HCM guide, browse the complete collection of Los Feliz monuments, and if you are weighing designation for your own home, here is how to get a home designated.