A. Quincy Jones Tour Oct. 1
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The house lights go down. We fade in on a car pulling up to a residential neighborhood in the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a sunny day in 1951. A bespectacled, middle-aged man gets out of the car and starts admiring the snazzy, new homes clinging to the rippling hillsides.
He is fledgling developer Joe Eichler, hunting for a new architect.
Hollywood may never make a 'bio-pic' about Joe Eichler or A. Quincy Jones, but if it did, you might see such a scene.
And if you want to visit the hypothetical shoot location, not far from Tinseltown itself, a unique opportunity presents itself Saturday October 1, when the Venice Family Clinic stages a home tour of historic Crestwood Hills.
"This tour has sort of shaped up to be the historical one," said Erin Hamisch, director of special events for the clinic, putting the Crestwood Hills date in context. She said the clinic puts on two or three architectural tours each year in addition to its main fundraiser, the Venice Art Walk. "It used to be we only did brand-new homes."
The Crestwood Hills Architectural Tour features four mid-century modern homes designed by a team led by Jones, along with one designed by Rodney Walker. The $175 ticket gets you the tour plus a docent-staffed shuttle bus ride and lunch.
Nearly half the homes Eichler built were based on designs by the Los Angeles firm of Jones & Emmons. In Crestwood Hills, Jones was not only able to team with architect Whitney Smith and structural engineer Edgardo Contini in creating 'hillside modern,' but also participated in a phenomenal social experiment.
