Hodel Residence and Tea House, Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #802
Built: 1921 Declared: 06/01/2005
This Vernacular Russian-Swiss Chalet is a special commission for prominent Russian architect Alexander Zelenko, who was also known for his pioneering work in education. Though a respected architect and artist in his homeland, almost all of Zelenko’s Russian architecture has been lost to the ruthless hand of ignorance and the devastations of war. One survivor is his whimsical 1907 ‘Settlement’ School in Moscow. The chimney of the Hodel House is reminiscent of the design of that building. One of his lost Russian buildings was the “delightfully crazy” Pfeffer wooden dacha in North Moscow, where stair balusters were made of natural tree branches, a feature found in the delicate supporting structure of shelves in the Hodel Tea House.