We may own these homes, but we think they belong to the people of Los Angeles
Posted on Friday, June 16, 2006 | Tagged as: echo park, historic preservation, history, angeleno heights
The New York Times visits Angeleno Heights and finds Murray Burns peering out his front window:
It was a sunny March morning, and a white rental sedan was parked in front of Murray Burns’s Victorian home on Carrol Avenue in Los Angeles. From the car’s front seat, two German women snapped photos of the ornately ornamented 1887 house, a Los Angeles landmark famous both as a pristinely restored example of this period architecture and also as the set for the television show “Charmed.”
Mr. Burns, wearing a pink Nehru shirt and Birkenstocks, watched the gawkers from his front lawn and sighed. “This is what we live with, every day,” he said, and, shrugging, shuffled toward the car. The women watched him approach with trepidation, prepared for a scolding. Instead, Mr. Burns flapped a hand at them with equal parts impatience and benevolence: “Would you like to come in?” he asked.
The Germans ooh-ed and aah-ed as they peered around Mr. Burns’s museum-perfect house, which is just one of 12 restored Victorians that Mr. Burns and his wife own — mostly as income-producing rental properties — and constantly end up showing to strangers. “We may own these homes, but we think they belong to the people of Los Angeles,” Mr. Burns explained, as the tourists snapped photos on his staircase. “There’s an obligation to let people like these experience it too.”
A Home to Its Owners, A Museum to Its Fans
