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Some people move into a house and adjust to their surroundings. When Lisa Edwards and Tracy Moore moved into their 1926 Wilshire Park home, it was more like they and the house became fast, dear friends: Each gave a little, appreciating each other's wonders and uncovering the other's personality and past.
Over five years, they have woven family treasures with the original architecture to make a place both unusual and instantly comfortable. Japanese pieces mix with Mexican pieces. Modernist, minimlaist chairs designed by Harry Bertoia for Knoll fit comfortably with the exuberantly decorative tiles by the pool. Hollywood photos mingle with folk art.
Edwards, a rabbi, and Moore, who is retired, have painted the walls with enthusiastic colors -- orange, red and blue -- mirroring the attitude these two women bring to a house full of books and art. When Moore is showing a visitor around, Edwards warns that her wife could talk about the house all day.
Their home is one of six stops on a Nov. 6 Los Angeles Conservancy tour to show off three Historic Preservation Overlay Zones: Wilshire Park, Country Club Park and Windsor Village.
The first house in the agricultural area that became Wilshire Park was built in 1907, and within two decades nearly every lot was developed -- in Craftsman, Dutch Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and other styles -- as people sought homes away from but convenient to the city center.
The neighborhood, just south of Wilshire Boulevard about five miles west of downtown, was home to wealthy people as well as residents who bought "cute little colonials," said Robby O'Donnell, a former neighborhood association president who worked hard to get the HPOZ established.
The original occupants of Moore and Edwards' four-bedroom house were Polish immigrants, the second Jewish family on the block, a couple who owned a shop in Boyle Heights, Moore said. The architect isn't known, but the house, also home to six children, was built with just one bathroom.
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Vibrant past, present
"We want to really showcase historic houses, especially in Historic Preservation Overlay Zones, as being historic and yet really current with today's time," said Linda Dishman, executive director of the conservancy. "That house shows a great respect for history but a very...