A Shelter in the Center of the Universe : Park La Brea: 176-acre apartment complex is a neighborhood within the Fairfax district, offering security and reliability.

I never imagined myself living in the largest apartment complex west of the Mississippi--4,253 units, Park La Brea, at 3rd and Fairfax--and loving it.

I had lived in the neighborhood around Park La Brea for 20 years and often cut through the maze of streets, pooh-poohing the place as I drove. It looked so staid. So boring. So beige. A uniformity that bordered on militaristic. A landscaping that clearly valued well-manicured over lush.

But I had to admit, the location was nice. A center-of-the-universe feeling (well, at least halfway between Hollywood and Beverly Hills). Across 6th Street from the County Museum of Art and across 3rd from the Farmers Market. A mile from Beverly Center. Lots of little mom-and-pop stores in the neighborhood.

When I sold my house and had to face querulous landlords and noisy neighbors again, I decided to rethink the place. I began to see Park La Brea as a sheltered workshop with an efficient, impersonal landlord and strict rules that kept everyone quiet--not just me. Finally I saw how this rigidity could work to my advantage. I could also have my own patio--not just a ledge cantilevered over an alley but a real patio.

The 176-acre complex is a neighborhood within a neighborhood (the Fairfax district). There are really two Park La Breas inside the gates: the towers and the garden apartments. Each has its charms. The towers have larger living rooms, a New York feeling and great views. The garden apartments have patios, grassy courtyards and lovely sycamores (and not-so-lovely olive trees). Their residents share miles of walkways and private streets, recreational facilities and a smug sense of having beaten the system: finding a livable, likable apartment in a great location.

It feels more like living in a small town than an ant colony. The garden apartments are set around spacious courtyards. There’s a huge sycamore outside my bedroom window; I love to watch it bud and green up and then go bare. I wake up to birds calls instead of neighbors revving their engines.

Marietta Carter, a make-up artist in the film industry who lives in a three-bedroom garden apartment with her fiancee, said she “feels like I’m living in a house with both a front and back door and a patio.� She’s introduced herself to everyone in her courtyard and likes the way neighbors watch out for each other. “We’re in our own little world here,� she said.

Park La Brea’s little world goes back more than 50 years. In 1940 the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. started to build garden apartments beginning at Fairfax Avenue and working eastward. Construction was halted at the beginning of World War II but got going again when Met Life pledged to rent to defense workers. After the war, as real estate prices soared, the wisdom of an all-garden-apartment complex was questioned. The master plan was reworked to include 18 13-story towers at the east end of the site. There are 1,499 garden apartments and 2,754 tower units. Forest City Enterprises bought the complex in 1985.

The rents, according to Jerry Baum, a longtime resident as well as the recently retired community relations director, “have always been a bit higher than the neighborhood. In 1960, I was living in a one-bedroom tower apartment on the 11th floor and paying $129. One bedrooms in the neighborhood then were going for $90-$95.� Today, Baum’s apartment rents for $920. One bedrooms rent for $715-$940; two bedrooms, $1,000-$1,150; three bedrooms, $1,390-$1,690.

In the 1940s and early ‘50s, Park La Brea was Anglo heaven. Baum recalls a rather “snobby� manager who managed to fill 4,000-plus apartments mostly with “her kind of people.� Two of the towers were set aside for Jews; even when there were vacancies in other areas, Jews were put on a waiting list for the designated towers. Baum remembers being stonewalled in his early attempts to rent here. “She didn’t like my last name,� he said. “But the fact that I was working at I. Magnin at the time won her over.�

Families with children were confined to their two towers and to garden apartments on the periphery so that other tenants would not have to put up with children at play.

Nikki Dana and her husband, Cecil, have raised their two children, Joe, 15, and Colin, 8, in Park La Brea. “When we moved here in 1979 to a two-bedroom,� she said, “we were the only family in our courtyard and it wasn’t all that comfortable.� Now they’re in a three-bedroom in another courtyard that includes several families. “It feels much more relaxed and very homey,� she said.

“‘Different courtyards have different personalities,� Dana said. Some courtyards have informal tag football sessions while, in others, not an errant toe steps on the lawn thanks to self-appointed watchdogs who report all infractions of the numerous regulations.

It can be difficult for a family with young children to adhere to all the rules: no toys left on the patios, no playing on grass that invites a good Frisbee toss or game of catch. Lease agreements specify that the courtyard lawns are not to be walked or played on. Baum cites lawsuit risks of the sunken sprinkler heads as the reason for this rule. Barbecues have only been permitted in the last year. The no-pets rule is unevenly enforced. Cats are everywhere, but dogs aren’t even permitted to pass through the gatehouse in guests’ cars.

Paul Ash, a 15-year resident who is both president of the tenants association and a member of the Los Angeles City Housing Commission, senses a growing lack of community, a shift from the “more homogenous� days. “Generationally things change,� he said. Ash said he is saddened by what he sees as evidence of different value systems: litter in the elevators.

The complex is beginning to seem like it exists in time-warp with real-time Los Angeles lapping at the edges. A contingent of older, long-term residents like to buttonhole other tenants in the laundry rooms to reminisce about the good old days--when everyone was lily white and “real gardeners� tended the shrubs.

The exteriors (vaguely Greek revival with hints of Chinese fretwork) are repainted, one bland color over another--but never updated. As apartments turn over, the Venetian blinds are being replaced by vertical ones.

Park La Brea is short on modern amenities. No place for a dishwasher, and microwaves have to be put on top of refrigerators. The closets were designed during a less-acquisitive era. But that’s kind of nice--it keeps us tenants from getting carried away with shopping mall rampages. For those of us who can adjust to what seems to many outsiders an austere way of life, there are payoffs. The construction is solid and well-thought-out. After living here a while, I began to appreciate the details. Good cross-ventilation. Brick walls. Apartments angled a few feet forward or back. I never hear my neighbors.

“It feels several grades above just renting,� Dana said. “I would never move to one of those new condos across 6th Street even with all their amenities. They aren’t nearly as well built.�

In Park La Brea, Dana said, she feels that “as a renter I have rights. You don’t have to beg for things to get fixed. The service is not done begrudgingly. You can call any time day or night and get the plumbing fixed.�

Forest City installed fencing, gates and gatehouses three years ago. Baum is quick to make clear this is not a security measure: “It is meant to create a feeling of privacy, to control traffic and deter maliciousness.� Museum-goers can no longer park here. No zipping around the circles to avoid congestion on Fairfax (one of my old tricks). A 2,500-member tenants association sprang to life to battle Forest City’s plan to pass the gating costs along to the residents 100% (and forced its reduction to 50%).

Park La Brea may not be crime-proof, but I feel relatively safe. I take long walks, sometimes at 10 at night, going for miles without retracing my steps.

Said Carter: “I work very odd hours. Sometimes I leave at 3 a.m.; sometimes I come home then. I feel safe here walking to my car.�

“Parking, not safety, remains the No. 1 issue among tenants,� said tenant association member Leslie Hiestand, who monitors tenant complaints for the quarterly newsletter. Parking is dreadful near the towers, tolerable away from them. (Assigned parking stalls in garages and carports are available for $25 a month extra.)

Vacancies vary considerably from month to month, but occupancy rates remain high. To keep it that way, Forest City has turned to aggressive marketing. To lure younger tenants, Forest City has stepped up the activities program, previously limited to bingo bashes and adult education courses in the community room. They’ve hired an activities director to plan ski trips, Super Bowl parties, caroling and Cinco de Mayo fiestas. Last summer’s outdoor Caribbean and country dances were big successes with all ages.

Someday the government-issue kitchen and bathroom may get to me, and I’ll move on, but for now, I find a serenity here. And it really does feel like a park. How rare it is, in L.A. apartment living, to have a view from a bedroom window. Not the next apartment or a bank of garages but trees and sky.

At a Glance

Population 1992 estimate: 6,836 1980-90 change: +6.2% Median age: 49.6 years Annual income Per capita: 30,991 Median household: 40,461 Household distribution Less than $30,000: 34.7% $30,000 - $60,000: 38.1% $60,000 - $100,000: 19.4% $100,000 - $150,000: 5.1% $150,000 +: 2.6%