# @dwellmagazine on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DJuRbmKxr4U
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/33974033-dwellmagazine-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/30820ee373.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-05-16T17:34:37.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Dwell (@dwellmagazine) — https://gondola.cc/dwellmagazine

## Caption

21 years ago, we stepped into Cory and Nick’s home in the Santa Monica Mountains, which is now a Historic-Cultural Monument and a symbol of the work Cory was doing to protect their community’s history. In celebration of our 25th anniversary this year—and National Preservation Month—we’re resurfacing the story from our archive.
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In 1946, four musicians returned from WWII and decided to pool their resources with the intention of buying land and building four houses with a shared pool/playground. Quickly, the group ballooned to around 500 members, each submitting a $25 entrance fee and quarterly deposits of $500 in the hopes of establishing a cooperative community. By 1947, the Mutual Housing Association was formed and 800 acres of land were divided into 350 lots. After a year of interviews with architects, a final design team was formed between architects Whitney R. Smith and A. Quincy Jones, along with engineer Edgardo Contini. By 1956, 150 houses were completed, and the site office—from which the architects worked for nearly a decade—had been converted into a home. Today, as tastes have changed and landscapes have evolved, many of these homes have fallen prey to maddening alterations or are simply no longer standing, and only 30 remain. This is where architect Cory Buckner comes in. “We tried to get people interested in creating a historic preservation overlay zone, but we couldn’t get enough support,” Buckner says of her campaign to keep the community intact. “So then I just decided to pursue getting individual houses declared historic monuments.” Thankfully, she’s had quite a bit of success: Within a decade, Buckner spurred the restoration of nearly half of the extant houses, 15 of which have been declared Historic-Cultural Monuments by Los Angeles. It’s entirely fitting that her own residence is the aforementioned Mutual Housing Association office. What was once the neighborhood’s center is, in a way, fulfilling that role once more. #dwellarchives | September, 2004 | Photos by darcy_hemley_photography | Story by grawesome | #moderndesign #modernarchitecture #interiordesign

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## Tags

interiordesign, modernarchitecture, dwellarchives, moderndesign

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