HCM #553. John Lautner's only completed school, a cluster of hexagonal, folded-roof classrooms in Los Feliz.
What is the Midtown School?
Midtown School Los Feliz is architect John Lautner's only completed school, a 1961 organic-modernist campus at 4155 Russell Avenue, designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #553 on November 12, 1991. Industrialist Kenneth Reiner commissioned it as a private progressive school, and Lautner answered with a cluster of small hexagonal classrooms under folded roofs.
Lautner built his name on the impossible house: the concrete flower of the Chemosphere, the sweeping curve of Silvertop, rooms that seem to defy the hillsides they hang from. Midtown School is the surprise in the catalog. It is not a house at all. It is a school, and it is the only one he ever finished, tucked into a quiet block of Los Feliz where most visitors walk past without knowing what they are looking at.
That is the pleasure of it. A Los Feliz realtor who knows the neighborhood can point to a low, unassuming campus on Russell Avenue and tell you it is the work of one of the most inventive architects of the twentieth century, applied not to a client's view but to a room full of children. The city agreed, and named it a monument in 1991.
Who commissioned the Midtown School, and why?
Midtown School was commissioned in 1961 by Kenneth Reiner, a wealthy Los Angeles industrialist, engineer, and inventor. Dissatisfied with the schools available to him, Reiner set out to build a private, progressive one for his own children and the children of like-minded families, and he turned to an architect he already trusted.
Reiner and Lautner were not strangers. Reiner was the client behind Silvertop, the radical concrete house Lautner designed above the Silver Lake reservoir, one of the most important modernist homes in Los Angeles. The same patron who bankrolled that hillside experiment brought Lautner down to the flats of Los Feliz to design a school, which is why Midtown carries the same restless, form-first thinking as Lautner's houses. You can see the residential side of that partnership in our profile of Silvertop, Lautner's Silver Lake masterwork, and the most personal side in the only house Lautner built for himself.
The brief was unusual and the result was too. Rather than a single institutional building, Lautner gave Reiner a small village: a cluster of separate hexagonal classroom and administrative structures, each one sized to feel like a place a child could belong to. Debbie Pisaro often points clients to Midtown as proof that Lautner's ideas were never only about spectacle. They were about how a space makes a person feel, whether that person is a homeowner on a cliff or a five-year-old in a classroom.
What makes the campus architecturally significant?
The significance of Midtown School is in how completely Lautner rethought what a classroom could be. Instead of a corridor of identical rooms, he designed a cluster of small hexagonal buildings, each capped by an unusual folded roof, ringed with windows, and lit from above by skylights, so the interiors are open, bright, and unmistakably his.
The scale is the point. The buildings were kept deliberately small, closer to child-size tents or cabins than to institutional blocks, which gave the campus an adventurous, almost secret quality for the students inside. The folded roofs are pure Lautner, the same structural expression that makes his houses feel alive, turned toward a gentler purpose. Large perimeter windows dissolve the line between classroom and yard, so a child moving through the school is always aware of the trees and light outside, exactly the indoor-to-outdoor fluidity Lautner chased his whole career.
There is a logic to why an engineer like Reiner and an architect like Lautner arrived at those roofs. A folded plate is a structural idea as much as a sculptural one: fold a flat surface and it stiffens, so a thin roof can span a wide room without a forest of columns underneath. Lautner used the trick to give each small classroom a single, uninterrupted space, open in the middle and lit from the edges, the kind of room a child reads as one clear place rather than a box. It is engineering pressed into the service of feeling, which is the through-line of everything Lautner and Reiner built together. Nearly sixty-five years on, that instinct still holds. Newer temporary buildings have crowded in around the originals, and the campus has grown to serve a full international school, yet the hexagons and their folded roofs remain the thing a visitor notices first, the part of the property that still reads as Lautner.
It belongs in the same Los Feliz conversation as the neighborhood's other modernist monuments. Richard Neutra's Lovell Health House is the most famous of them. His nearby Wirin House is a quieter companion, and we profile the man himself in our piece on architect Richard Neutra. Midtown is a highlight of any tour of Los Feliz architecture, and our Los Feliz HCM guide maps every designated home and building in the neighborhood, from Midtown to famous piles like the Castle on Glendower. The campus is documented by the Los Angeles Conservancy, and the Pacific Coast Architecture Database adds the architectural record.
What does HCM #553 mean, and is it still a school?
Midtown School is still a school. The roughly six-and-a-half-acre campus is now home to the Lycee International of Los Angeles, and while temporary modular classrooms have been added over the years, the original scale and character of Lautner's design still set the tone of the property. Its Historic-Cultural Monument status protects that character.
Historic-Cultural Monument status is Los Angeles's oldest form of landmark protection. For a property like Midtown, designation reviews exterior changes and recognizes the campus as a work of civic and architectural importance, which matters as the surrounding Los Feliz and Franklin Hills blocks continue to change. The same framework of protection and incentive, including the Mills Act, applies to the neighborhood's designated homes, a subject Debbie Pisaro covers in her guide to how designation affects home value.
For owners of designated homes near Midtown, the Mills Act can meaningfully lower property taxes in exchange for a preservation commitment. It is one of the first things a serious buyer models, and a central issue in any monument sale.
That expertise carries directly to the houses around the school. Pricing a monument is not the same as pricing the house next door. Debbie Pisaro covers what that means for a seller in her work on selling a Mills Act or HCM home in Los Feliz. She works these homes as an architectural homes specialist across the east side. 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, built on 24 years of matching design-forward and historic homes to the buyers who understand them.
If you own an architectural home in Los Feliz and are weighing a sale, the honest first step is a real number, grounded in current comps, which you can request through a private Los Feliz home valuation. If you are looking to buy near landmarks like Midtown, a Los Feliz realtor who works these blocks can point you toward homes that never reach the open market, including current off-market Los Feliz homes. Either way, start with the best real estate agent in Los Feliz for architectural property.
Midtown School questions, answered
Where is the Midtown School in Los Feliz?
Midtown School stands at 4155 Russell Avenue in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, CA 90027, on a campus of roughly six and a half acres in the Franklin Hills area. It is an active private school rather than a public attraction, so it is best appreciated from the surrounding public streets.
Who designed the Midtown School?
The Midtown School was designed by John Lautner, one of the most inventive American architects of the twentieth century, best known for houses like Silvertop and the Chemosphere. Completed in 1961, Midtown is the only school Lautner ever finished, which makes it a rare and unusual entry in his body of work.
Who commissioned the Midtown School, and why?
Kenneth Reiner, a Los Angeles industrialist, engineer, and inventor, commissioned the school in 1961. Unhappy with the options available to him, he wanted a private, progressive school for his own children and those of like-minded families. Reiner had already hired Lautner to design his Silver Lake home, Silvertop.
Is it still a school today?
Yes. The Midtown School campus is now home to the Lycee International of Los Angeles, a private international school. Temporary modular classrooms have been added over the decades to serve a larger student body, but the scale and character of John Lautner's original hexagonal buildings still dominate the feel of the property.
What style is the Midtown School?
Midtown School is a work of organic modernism, sometimes described as mid-century modern, the movement John Lautner helped define in Los Angeles. Its hexagonal classrooms, folded roofs, wraparound windows, and skylights reflect Lautner's belief that architecture should respond to human experience and the natural light and setting around it.
Why is the Midtown School a Historic-Cultural Monument?
The City of Los Angeles designated Midtown School as Historic-Cultural Monument #553 on November 12, 1991, recognizing it as a significant work of organic modernism and as the only completed school by John Lautner. The designation protects the campus's architectural character as the surrounding neighborhood changes.
Who is a good Los Feliz real estate agent for architectural 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 properties, and she works the Los Feliz and Franklin Hills market street by street.
Can you visit the Midtown School?
Midtown School is an active private school and is not open for public tours, so please respect the students, staff, and the residential streets around it. The campus can be glimpsed from the public sidewalks along Russell Avenue, which is the appropriate way to appreciate this and most other Los Feliz landmarks.
What else did John Lautner design?
John Lautner is best known for his houses, including Silvertop above Silver Lake, the Chemosphere in the Hollywood Hills, and the Sheats-Goldstein Residence in Beverly Crest. Midtown School is the rare exception, the one school in a career defined by radical, site-driven homes across Los Angeles and beyond.
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
Lautner's Midtown School is one of the more unexpected monuments in the area. 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.
