HCM #1069. A 1924 fairy-tale cottage on Glendower Avenue, a few hundred feet from a Frank Lloyd Wright temple and a Neutra in steel.
What is the Hlaffer-Courcier Residence?
The Hlaffer-Courcier Residence at 2574 N. Glendower Avenue is a 1924 Storybook house in Los Feliz, built by Rufus Buck for Lulu E. Hlaffer. It is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1069, declared June 24, 2014, and it takes its second name from the family who owned it for sixty-six years.
Glendower Avenue is the strangest few hundred feet of residential street in California, and almost nobody who drives it knows why. At 2607 is Frank Lloyd Wright's textile-block temple. At 2622 is a Richard Neutra in steel and glass, built for the first full-time lawyer of the ACLU. And at 2574, between them, is a fairy tale: three gables bowed like something out of a woodcut, chimneys studded with burnt brick, and half-timbers deliberately charred black.
Three monuments. Three architectural universes that have nothing whatsoever to say to each other. One block. This is the house most people miss.
What Storybook architecture actually is
Storybook is the one Los Angeles style that was never trying to be serious, and that is precisely the point of it. It runs roughly from the early 1920s into the late 1930s, and it borrows from Norman farmhouses, English cottages, Bavarian villages, and, more honestly, from the sets being built a few miles away in Hollywood. Architects and builders working in it were designing for delight rather than for doctrine.
The vocabulary is consistent once you know it. Roofs intentionally uneven, sometimes swaybacked, with ridges that curl. Doors and windows that look mismatched or odd-shaped on purpose. Turrets, false thatch, clinker brick, and stucco applied so it looks handled rather than finished. The whole idiom is built on artificial age: making a house that opened in 1924 look as though it had been standing in a European village for three centuries.
At the Hlaffer-Courcier, that intent is visible in the details. Three gables with steep, bowed pitches and exaggerated concave ridges. Two stucco chimneys accented with an erratic application of clinker brick, the overfired, warped brick that most builders discarded and Storybook builders sought out. A speakeasy door with an iron grill at the entry. Inside, plank doors with triangular peaked tops, and half-timbers that were charred by fire and then smoothed, which is a real technique and not a metaphor. Someone set the timbers alight, put them out, and sanded them back to get a colour that new wood cannot give you.
This matters for the collection as a whole, because Los Feliz is documented mostly through its serious architecture, the modernists and the period-revival grandees. Storybook is the neighborhood's playful register, and until now Debbie Pisaro's Los Feliz historic homes collection had no example of it. It does now.
Rufus Buck, or Rufus Beck, and whether he was the architect
Here the record argues with itself, and the honest thing is to say so rather than pick a side quietly. The Los Feliz Improvement Association lists the house as the work of Rufus Buck and names him as its architect. The historian Charles J. Fisher, whose research underpins a great many Los Angeles monument nominations, gives the name as Rufus Beck and describes him as the builder rather than the architect. The photographic record filed under the house carries the Buck spelling and the architect attribution.
Two of three sources say Buck, so that is the spelling used here, and this page follows the LFIA in treating him as the designing hand. But the distinction between architect and builder is not pedantry in this period. Storybook houses were frequently the work of builders and contractors rather than licensed architects, which is part of why the style is under-documented and why so many of its makers are difficult to trace. Fisher notes that Buck was responsible for other Storybook homes around Los Angeles, so whatever his title, he was working in the idiom repeatedly rather than once.
The build year drifts too. Some records show 1923, most show 1924. A one-year variance on a house designated ninety years after the fact is unremarkable, and it is the kind of thing worth knowing before someone quotes a date at you with confidence.
Sixty-six years in one family
The house carries two names because it had two defining owners. Lulu E. Hlaffer was the original, the person for whom it was built in 1924. Then in 1933, John and Irene Courcier bought it, and they did not leave until 1999.
Sit with that number. Sixty-six years. The Courciers held this house through the Depression, the Second World War, the postwar boom, the entire arc of Los Angeles becoming the city it is now. Neutra had not yet built up the street when they moved in. They were there when he did, and they were still there sixty years later.
That is not a charming footnote. It is the single most important thing about the Los Feliz historic market, expressed as one address. Debbie Pisaro tells buyers constantly that these houses almost never come up, and the reason is not scarcity of supply in the abstract. It is that the people who own them do not want to leave. A house that traded twice in seventy-five years is not an anomaly on this street, it is the pattern, and it is why Los Feliz historic homes for sale is a shorter list than any buyer expects.
Three monuments on Glendower Avenue
There is no other street in California that does this. Within a few hundred feet on Glendower Avenue, the City of Los Angeles has designated three separate monuments, and no two of them share a single architectural assumption.
The Ennis House, HCM #149, is Frank Lloyd Wright's textile-block Mayan temple, the most photographed private residence in the neighborhood. The Wirin House, HCM #812, is Richard Neutra in 1949, steel and glass and restraint, built for a civil liberties lawyer and designed to hide its own size. And the Hlaffer-Courcier is a fairy tale from 1924 with burnt timbers and a speakeasy door.
A monumental ancient-world fantasy, a machine for rational living, and a cottage pretending to be three hundred years old in Normandy. Built across twenty-five years, on the same hillside, facing the same view. That is not a coincidence of zoning. It is what happens when a neighborhood becomes the place where Los Angeles works out what a house could be, which is the argument the whole Los Feliz historic homes guide is built on.
Buyers who come for the modernism usually leave knowing more than they arrived with. The Lovell Health House and the Samuel-Novarro House bring them to the neighborhood. The Sowden House, the Petitfils Residence, and houses like this one are what they find once they are here.
What monument status means for a Storybook house
Historic-Cultural Monument status protects the exterior. Demolition and significant facade alteration go through review by the city's Cultural Heritage Commission, while interior renovation, repairs, repainting, and landscaping fall outside the process. On a Storybook house that protection matters more than usual, because the entire value of the style lives in its surfaces.
A Neutra survives a bad window replacement looking wounded. A Storybook house does not survive one at all. Strip the clinker brick, flatten the bowed ridge, swap the speakeasy door for something from a catalogue, and the house stops being what it is. That fragility is exactly why these are the ones most likely to be lost, and why so few survive at monument quality in Los Angeles. Designation is doing real work here.
Restoration on a Storybook house is a specialist trade. The charred half-timbers, the deliberately irregular stucco, the clinker brick: none of it is available off a shelf, and a general contractor working in good faith can erase a hundred years of character in a weekend. Ask who has done this work before you sign anything.
The financial side runs through the Mills Act, California's preservation incentive, which can reduce a designated owner's property taxes substantially in exchange for a maintenance commitment. Two cautions apply here as everywhere. Designation and a Mills Act contract are separate things, and most monuments have never held one. And Los Angeles has not accepted new applications since 2020, which makes an existing contract something a buyer cannot currently reproduce. Debbie Pisaro covers what that does to value in does historic designation hurt home value in Los Feliz, and what it does to a sale in selling a Mills Act or HCM home in Los Feliz.
What a Storybook house is worth
Storybook houses price strangely, and buyers coming from outside California are usually unprepared for it. They are small by luxury standards. They rarely have the open plan or the primary suite a comparable budget buys elsewhere. On paper they should trade at a discount, and instead the good ones trade at a premium, because there is no way to build another one.
A designated Storybook house is close to unappraisable by conventional method. Square footage and bedroom count describe none of what a buyer is paying for. This is the same valuation problem every architectural property presents, and it is why Debbie Pisaro's brokerage wrote the method down in how to price an architectural home in Los Angeles. The buyers exist, they are national rather than local, and they are not shopping a zip code. They are shopping for the one house that does this, and California is where nearly all of them are.
If you are early in a search, start with the guide to buying an architectural home in Los Feliz. If you already own something like this and are weighing a move, a private Los Feliz home valuation is the honest first step. Debbie Pisaro's wider California practice sits on her architectural homes specialist page, and the case for working with her is on the best real estate agent in Los Feliz.
View on the Los Feliz mapHlaffer-Courcier Residence questions, answered
Where is the Hlaffer-Courcier Residence?
It stands at 2574 N. Glendower Avenue in Los Feliz, Los Angeles 90027, on the same short stretch of hillside street as the Ennis House and the Wirin House. It is a private residence rather than a museum, so it is best appreciated from the public road, in keeping with the character of the neighborhood.
Who built the Hlaffer-Courcier Residence?
Rufus Buck, in 1924, for Lulu E. Hlaffer. The record is not entirely settled: the Los Feliz Improvement Association names him Rufus Buck and credits him as architect, while the historian Charles J. Fisher gives the name as Rufus Beck and describes him as the builder. He worked on other Storybook houses around Los Angeles either way.
Why is it called the Hlaffer-Courcier Residence?
The house carries the names of both its defining owners. Lulu E. Hlaffer commissioned it in 1924. John and Irene Courcier bought it in 1933 and owned it until 1999, sixty-six years in one family. Monument names frequently pair an original owner with a long-tenured later one in exactly this way.
What is Storybook architecture?
Storybook, sometimes called Provincial Revivalism or Fairy Tale style, is a Los Angeles idiom of the 1920s and 1930s that borrows from Norman, English, and Bavarian rural building, filtered through Hollywood set design. It is defined by deliberately uneven roofs, curling ridgelines, odd-shaped openings, clinker brick, and stucco built to look centuries old.
What are the charred timbers on this house?
A genuine Storybook technique rather than a description. The half-timbers were set alight, extinguished, and then sanded smooth, producing a depth of colour and texture that new wood cannot achieve. It is one of several methods the style used to manufacture the appearance of age on a house that was brand new.
Is the Hlaffer-Courcier Residence a Historic-Cultural Monument?
Yes. It was declared Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #1069 on June 24, 2014, ninety years after it was built. That status protects the property from demolition and significant exterior alteration without review by the city's Cultural Heritage Commission, and makes it eligible to apply for the Mills Act when the city accepts applications.
Are there other monuments on Glendower Avenue?
Two more, within a few hundred feet. The Ennis House, HCM #149, is Frank Lloyd Wright's 1924 textile-block landmark. The Wirin House, HCM #812, is Richard Neutra's 1949 steel-and-glass home for the first full-time lawyer of the ACLU. Three designated monuments in three unrelated styles on one hillside street.
How often do Storybook houses come up for sale in Los Feliz?
Rarely, and the tenure at this address explains why. Owners of houses like this hold them for decades, sometimes generations, and when they do sell the process is frequently private. Buyers serious about one should be known to an agent working these streets well before they intend to purchase.
Can you renovate a Storybook house that is designated?
Yes. Interior renovation and ordinary maintenance are generally permitted, while demolition and major exterior work go through city review. The practical constraint is craft rather than permission: the charred timbers, irregular stucco, and clinker brick require specialists, and a well-meaning general contractor can erase the character very quickly.
Does monument status change property taxes in California?
Not by itself. Tax relief comes from the separate Mills Act program, which requires monument or historic district status to apply and can reduce property taxes substantially in exchange for a preservation commitment. Los Angeles has not accepted new applications since 2020, so confirm where a specific property stands before counting on the savings.
Talk to Debbie
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Debbie Pisaro, DRE #01369110, is the founder of Coastline 840, an independent California brokerage, and a 2025 Inman Luxury Leader with twenty-four years of experience in architectural, historic, and design-forward homes. She writes about California real estate at debbiepisaro.com, losfelizliving.com, and coastline840.com.
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