A Wilshire Jewel, or Imitation?

By Bob Pool

July 31, 2003 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Along Wilshire Boulevard’s Miracle Mile, it may take something of a miracle to settle a fight between preservationists who are a mile apart over a plan to replace a 54-year-old retail store with an apartment project.

The squabble centers on the former Mullen & Bluett building at Wilshire Boulevard and Ridgeley Drive.

One side says the sprawling two-story building is a historic gem of a Miracle Mile department store that today is one of the last remaining examples of mid-century “California design” by acclaimed Los Angeles architect Stiles Clements.

The other asserts that the building was never a department store, that it suffers from humdrum architecture that is out of character with rest of the famed retail boulevard -- and that it probably wasn’t even designed by Stiles Clements at all.

It’s an odd dispute, because many of Clements’ certified architectural landmarks have been unceremoniously torn down in the past with people scarcely batting an eye.

Clements’ name is well known among Art Deco fans and architecture enthusiasts. His work included downtown’s El Capitan and Mayan theaters, the Adamson House in Malibu and the Streamline Moderne Jefferson High School.

His classic Wiltern Theatre on Wilshire Boulevard is among the Clements buildings that remain. But his renowned 1929 Richfield Building was razed in 1969 to make way for downtown redevelopment and the Arco Plaza towers. A Miracle Mile masterpiece, his sleek 1938 Coulter’s Department Store, was torn down in 1980 to make room for a project that never was built.

Earlier this year, Clements’ circa-1936 Art Deco radio station, the former KFI studio on Vermont Avenue, was bulldozed with little fanfare so Los Angeles school officials can use the site for an elementary campus.

Preservationist Eric Lynxwiler was doing research a few months ago for a planned book on Wilshire Boulevard for writer Kevin Roderick, author of “The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb,” when he learned that the boulevard’s Mullen & Bluett building was next on the hit list.

Irvine-based Legacy Partners had filed plans with the city to demolish the building and a smaller structure next door. The development firm proposed building 197 apartment units and ground-level retail storefronts on Wilshire between Burnside Avenue and Ridgeley.

“The design of Mullen & Bluett is amazing. It’s a style that is just now being appreciated. It’s a 1949 structure that looks like it’s from the ‘70s,” Lynxwiler said.

With a brick facade balanced by first-floor flagstone, the store featured men’s furnishings on the first floor and a women’s section on the second. “This was the first architectural style after World War II, a ‘late Moderne.’ This is what led to the ‘50s and ‘60s modern that everybody’s familiar with,” he said.

Lynxwiler hurriedly organized other preservationists in a campaign to persuade Legacy Partners to preserve the Mullen & Bluett building -- now occupied by an Office Depot and a Sav-On Drugs. He urged that the apartments be designed in a style that complements Clements’ structure and be built behind the retail structure.

Preservationists sent 65 protest letters to the city planning office. Many asked that an architectural and historic assessment be done before the city allowed demolition to occur.

Legacy Partners responded by hiring Los Angeles Art Deco architecture expert Mitzi March Mogul to evaluate the Miracle Mile building. Her findings, filed two weeks ago, caused jaws to drop.

“Although Clements may have designed some excellent buildings, [this] building is not one of these. It’s demolition will not damage Clements’ oeuvre,” the report concluded.

The building was never a department store, it was only a men’s clothing store, Mogul reported. Its architectural style exhibits “no particular design identity” and doesn’t really fit in with the overall Art Deco-look of the Miracle Mile area.

Mogul questioned whether Clements even designed the 1949 structure.

“The building does not appear representative of Clements’ personal style and appears more likely the work of a younger person, schooled in a different attitude toward ornamentation. The building may not have been executed by Clements, but only approved by him.”

If Clements did design it, the building may “have been just a bread and butter commission” for “an architect near the end of his career” at age 64, she said.

The destruction of the Coulter’s department store and the old KFI studios “was indeed tragic and should continue to serve as a cautionary tale,” Mogul acknowledged. “But fear is not a reason to hang on to mediocrity, and saving a structure which is banal is not going to bring back Coulter’s, nor will it honor the memory of that notable work.”

Mogul -- whose credentials include preservation work with the Los Angeles Conservancy and as head of the Los Angeles Art Deco Society -- suggested Tuesday that Stiles Clements’ son, Robert Clements Sr., may have been the actual architect for the Mullen & Bluett building. Stiles Clements retired in 1965 and died in 1966; his son took over the firm in 1965 and died in 1987 at age 69.

“I’m a preservationist at heart. It’s not that I sold out to the ‘evil developer.’ My integrity is not for sale here,” she said. “It’s just that this is not the master’s work, as much as we’d like it to be.”

J.J. Abraham, a Legacy Partners vice president, said construction plans call for the proposed apartment and retail areas to have a modified Art Deco look. He said Tuesday that his firm hopes to start the $70-million project a year from now.

Other preservationists, meantime, were eager to read Mogul’s report.

“I don’t want to take sides at this point,” said Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy.

Lynxwiler was making plans to travel to City Hall to study it.

“It’s ludicrous to say it’s not Stiles Clements’ work. To argue that it’s not significant because it not one type of architecture, Art Deco, is wrong. I’m just disgusted,” Lynxwiler said.

Preservationist Adriene Biondo, who heads the Los Angeles Conservancy’s modern architecture committee, said Mogul’s expertise is Art Deco, not modern design.

“I think it’s irresponsible and a slap in the face of the city of Los Angeles and the Miracle Mile. It really has me reeling,” Biondo said Wednesday of Mogul’s report.

City planning officials, meantime, said a public hearing on the Miracle Mile apartment proposal has not been scheduled, although it will probably occur in September.

When announced, it’s a date local architecture buffs will probably want to preserve on their calendars.