LOCATION: Hollyood, California
SIZE: 68,230 SF | 99 units
CLIENT: Beacon Development Group
BDG SERVICES: Architecture, Interiors
COLLABORATORS: Roberto Biaggi, mural artist
PROGRAM: Affordable housing for seniors with community rooms, courtyards and offices
AWARDS: Gold Nugget Award of Merit for Best Affordable 55+ Housing: Merit Winner - Residential, CODAawards
CASTLE ARGYLE APARTMENTS
The historic Castle Argyle Apartments is an affordable housing community for seniors that features studio and one-bedroom units. Built in 1928, this 99-unit building, in the heart of Hollywood, was originally designed as a residence-hotel, hosting such luminaries as Cecil B. DeMille, Clark Gable, and Howard Hughes. With a surgical approach, while navigating the complexities of COVID during construction, the BDG team completed a total rehabilitation that completely modernizes the building through comprehensive interior and exterior renovations, seismic retrofitting, upgraded utilities and fixtures, landscape improvements, a custom art program, new common-area furnishings, and extensive accessibility upgrades throughout.
The design intent of the renovation was to reveal the building’s classic character and re-introduce its origins in the Hollywood Regency Style using colors and patterns of the era, but with a slightly more contemporary feeling. This style is one of elegance, opulence, and glamour.
By reconfiguring the first-floor community space—widely used by tenants—Bell Design Group created a more welcoming area with a variety of activity options. New windows were installed for greater visual access to Argyle Avenue as well as to the landscaped courtyard, which also provides active outdoor exercise space. A library, kitchen, dining area, and living room complete the common spaces; a new exercise room in a former storage area is reached across the furnished courtyard.
During renovation, the architects discovered and renovated the original coffered ceilings throughout the first floor, which also includes management and tenant-service offices, including a room for on-site medical personnel. Individual units were all upgraded with new kitchens, baths, appliances, air conditioning, paint, and flooring.
The art program begins on the exterior with a 15- x-15-foot ceramic-tile mosaic mural facing Argyle Avenue. Artist Roberto Biaggi’s figurative mural on the parking structure wall represents the diverse history of Castle Argyle, its residents, and the community. Biaggi’s abstract lobby mosaic mural—made of glass tiles—provides a decorative and aesthetic feature in keeping with the Hollywood Regency style of the building. Also restored were the two historic exterior neon signs that act as beacons through the Hollywood night sky.
Bringing an historic building back to its glory preserves the heritage of this Hollywood neighborhood, and, with the structural and safety upgrades, preserves much-needed affordable housing in the heart of this community.
