View Single Post
  #10079  
Old Posted Nov 1, 2012, 6:12 PM
Those Who Squirm!'s Avatar
Those Who Squirm! Those Who Squirm! is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: In my specially built chair
Posts: 376
An 172-year-old house in Santa Monica. (Discovered a marvellous trick)

Back in August I posted about the City-Data.com website, where you can get the recorded build dates of most buildings and houses, although there are some exceptions.

Using Google, you can query for the year of your choice to see what buildings exist, if any for a given year. For example, if you enter this into the Google search field:

site:city-data.com los angeles property valuation "Year built: 1840"

you will find this house in Santa Monica:



And from the information given:

Year built: 1840
Effective year built: 1950

I suppose it's possible the house was entirely rebuilt in 1950, but even it it was it's still remarkable to think that a house had been standing there previously since 1840. And it doesn't look like a 1950s era house anyway, so I suspect it really might be from 1840. If anything, it looks like an old adobe house that might have once been an outbuilding on the Malibu rancho.

To search for other years, just substitute the year of your choice for 1840. Once we get back to before 1890 or so, each year may reveal only one or two buildings, or none at all. But it's astonishing how far back we can find recorded build dates.
__________________
The new Wandering In L.A. post is published!

This Is Probably The Oldest Intact School Building In L.A.
Reply With Quote