In Windsor Hills, Pleasant Surprises

June Petty wasn’t at all sure she wanted to live on ground any higher than the flatlands she had known growing up in Michigan. But once her husband, Harold, had taken her to see the two-bedroom house with a den and spacious backyard that sat back on a gentle rise in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Windsor Hills, she had a change of heart.

Like her husband, a general contractor, Petty saw the potential of the 1940s house, which stood in its original condition and had not been spoiled by bad remodeling jobs or poorly conceived additions. Best of all, it was on a level lot and had a backyard filled with fruit trees--peach, lemon, orange, avocado and fig--where June Petty, an avid gardener, could indulge her passion.

“We thought that for the money [and] location, it was ideal for our situation,” said Harold Petty, and the couple bought the house for $225,000.

Serenely detached from the hustle below, Windsor Hills is a community of 2,000 single-family homes tucked into a hilly square-mile fold of unincorporated Los Angeles County. Bounded by Baldwin Hills to the north and Culver City to the west, it is a little more than two miles east of the San Diego Freeway. Often linked to adjacent and higher-priced View Park, Windsor Hills is one of a number of enclaves that dot the Baldwin Hills.

“On this hillside you get a lot of breezes from the ocean that top off up here,” said June Petty, an occupational therapy supervisor at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. “They push back a lot of the smog and pollution. It’s pretty cool.”

Started in 1937 by developers Fred Marlow and Fritz Burns, the upscale, largely African American community of Windsor Hills is notable for the architectural diversity of its custom homes. No two are like and each one is a surprise, said Janet Singleton of Prudential California-Jon Douglas Realty.

“I tell [appraisers] all the time that this is one neighborhood that you can’t curb-appraise. You need to see how the house is laid out,” she said.

What these homes almost always share are views, large lots on curving streets and meticulous landscaping that reflects pride of ownership.

A 1,500-square-foot house with a formal dining room and study lists at $200,000 and represents the low end of the Windsor Hills market, said Singleton’s partner, Gwen Troy. A 3,000-square-foot house that recently sold for $345,000 is a high-end example, she said.

Melba Fields recalls her resistance to checking out the 2,800-square-foot, split-level house on Overdale Avenue when she and her husband, Art, pulled up in front of the “For Sale” sign 20 years ago.

“I said this house is too square,” she said. “It has angles, it’s boxy. It doesn’t have a personality. And I don’t want to live here.”

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That was until she walked inside and discovered open beam ceilings and a floor plan in which the children’s bedrooms adjoined the master suite--an arrangement that was exactly what the young mother had in mind. “I could see the possibilities,” said Melba Fields, a public relations coordinator for a social services organization.

Although $40,000 seemed like a great deal at the time, Art Fields, an administrator with the Beverly Hills Unified School District, believed that they got “more house for our dollar” than anywhere else they had looked.

And although the couple have thought of living elsewhere after retirement, Art Fields said they always return to one fact: “We’re really centrally located. We’re close to the airport, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, downtown. Given the amount of traveling we do, it would be difficult to live anywhere else at this point.”

Two years ago, Mark and Patty Indictor, then renting in Culver City, had no idea Windsor Hills existed until a friend’s suggestion led them to the area. But as soon as they stepped into their 2,000-square-foot corner house with a studio and an Art Deco look, an attachment to the neighborhood began to form.

“The views out of all the windows are beautiful. The neighborhood just rises out of this house. It’s kind of a centerpiece,” said Mark Indictor, a computer software engineer and musician.

The 1941 house was “overbuilt” by the owner, an architect with an apparent distaste for right angles and corners, Indictor said. “One of the things that I loved was the fact that you couldn’t always tell where you were in it. Walls that are the same wall don’t appear to be the same wall from one room to the next. Even now I get confused.”

What is clear, however, is his delight in his $268,000 purchase. “The whole house is built around the backyard,” he said. “It’s like this protected pocket in the middle of the crazy city. I feel completely safe.”

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This feeling of security is one of the pluses of living in Windsor Hills, residents say. A high level of protection provided by the sheriff’s Marina station and the satellite station in Ladera Center is often mentioned by residents.

In turn, Deputy Rossana Taylor gives an involved citizenry credit for the low crime rate in the area. Faced with budget cuts two years ago, it was local support “that actually kept the Marina sheriff’s station open,” she said.

More recently, residents have discovered another asset. While their homes have always been regarded as well-built, the notable lack of damage from the 1994 Northridge quake underscored just how well they stood up under the shaking.

Harold Petty recalls being impressed by the minimal number of cracked chimneys he noticed in searching for a home.

“Although we’re in the hills, we don’t have a lot of shifting, slides and things,” Art Fields said. “This is solid rock.”

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As black families started buying homes in Windsor Hills in the mid-1960s, the neighborhood began to experience the “white flight” that was then occurring all over Baldwin Hills. However, the gradual loss of white residents did not stymie the neighborhood association that was also taking shape.

What began in the early 1960s as a scattering of block clubs opposed to a roller skating rink has evolved into a formidable homeowners’ group with a considerable string of wins in varying development battles.

But no one really expected to keep a pawnshop from opening last spring at a major intersection at the base of Windsor Hills. Since the location was zoned for commercial use, the pawnshop owner was within his rights, explained Walter Dubuclet, a longtime resident and neighborhood activist.

Still, the community rose up against it, said Dubuclet, who recalls the defeat of the pawnshop as “quite a victory.”

The same exodus of white families also left Windsor Hills Elementary School with a declining student population. To keep the school open and encourage the community to return, in 1989 it was turned into a citywide magnet with special programs in math, science and aerospace studies. And while today even children of local residents must apply, by all accounts the sense of a neighborhood school is stronger than ever.

“You can go to the school on any given day [and] see parents there all day long,” said former PTA President Althea Sims, whose two oldest children are recent Windsor Hills graduates. “The parent core group is just outstanding.” She also expressed satisfaction in Windsor’s newly acquired status as LEARN school, a change that will give the parents more decentralized control.

Windsor Hills and its neighbors--View Park and View Heights--also had something to say about the fate of the Wich Stand. Declared an historic landmark by the Los Angeles Conservancy, the former 1950s “Googi”-style drive-in coffee shop had been vacant for the last six years.

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For two years, homeowners fought developers who wanted to put an affordable housing project on the site. Then Percell Keeling, the owner of Simply Wholesome, a popular restaurant and health food store on Slauson Avenue, decided to expand his facilities by moving across the street.

“The community wanted something viable and something they could be proud of,” said Keeling, who received a $400,000 loan from the county’s Community Development Commission to help finance the $1 million-plus purchase.

Windsor Hills resident Liliana Cruz, who markets technology for the apparel industry, is delighted with the expansion of Simply Wholesome.

Cruz and her husband, Dan Jackson, a television director, fell in love with their sturdy-looking Cape Cod-style home in the summer of 1989, a time of skyrocketing home prices. But they were able to work out a deal with the sellers, who loaned them part of the money “and made the financial aspect do-able,” she said.

Cruz calls the new Simply Wholesome a “nice showy place for the neighborhood to hang out. It’s encouraging to see that kind of development,” she said.

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Windsor Hills Home Sale Data

Sample Size (for 10-year period): 282

Ave. home size (square feet): 1,932

Ave. Year Built: 1947

Ave. No. Bedrms: 2.76

Ave. No. Baths: 2.05

Pool: 17%

View homes: 5%

Central air: 4%

Floodzone: 67%

Price Range (1995-96): $72,000-525,000

Predominant Value: $350,000

Age Range: 10-71 years

Predominant Age: 56 years

Average Sales Data

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Year Total $ per Median Sales sq. ft. price 1996* 4 $112.09 $336,000 1995 33 $132.77 $230,454 1994 37 $129.33 $243.378 1993 21 $148.85 $254,761 1992 27 $157.73 $255,000 1991 20 $168.23 $297,000 1990 32 $161.44 $298,781 1989 28 $148.45 $264,000 1988 35 $123.36 $206,857 1987 45 $102.47 $195,666

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*1996 data current through February.

Source: TRW Redi Property Data, Anaheim