About the Building
Dorchester House is a for-sale condominium, and the assessor's roll is unusually clear about it. Forty-two separately assessed parcels sit at 1040 4th Street on recorded condominium Tract 40252, Lot 1, described as condominium units one through forty-two and created on 25 July 1990. Every one sampled is coded 010C, the assessor's classification for a purpose-built condominium rather than a conversion. The homes are addressed 101 to 115, 201 to 209, 301 to 309 and 401 to 409, which places fifteen residences on the first level and nine on each of the three above.
The unit count is the first correction the record forces. Condominium directories publish twenty-seven units for this building. The assessor carries forty-two, in an unbroken sequence with nothing before unit one and nothing after unit forty-two, all on the same tract and the same lot. Forty-two is the number that appears on the recorded map, on the tract's legal descriptions and on forty-two separate annual tax bills. A buyer should work from that figure, because unit count drives the assessment base, the quorum arithmetic and the per-home share of every capital item the association owns.
The second correction is the address. The building is commonly given as 1040 to 1044 4th Street, and the second number may well appear on a door or on an older record. The assessor recognises no parcels at 1044 4th Street in this postcode. Every one of the forty-two condominium parcels is addressed at 1040. That is a small thing until it is not, and it matters for title, for insurance and for anything that turns on a legal address. Use 1040 and confirm any second street number against the recorded map.
The range of plan sizes is the building's defining feature and it is genuinely wide. Assessor areas sampled across the building run from 671 square feet at unit 110, a one-bedroom home on the first level, to 2,927 square feet at unit 409, recorded with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Between them sit 792 and 885 square feet on the first level, 1,474 square feet with two bedrooms, 1,746 square feet on the third level and 2,356 square feet on the fourth. A directory publishes exactly the same 671 to 2,927 span, which is close corroboration between an aggregator and the public record.
Directories describe multi-level plans, ceilings reaching about eighteen feet, designer kitchens, large primary suites and multiple balconies and sun decks, with a pool, spa, sauna, exercise room and recreation room in the common areas. The amenity list is broad for forty-two homes and reads as a coherent 1990 specification, but it comes from listing sources rather than from the association. The eighteen-foot ceiling claim in particular attaches to specific plans rather than to the building as a whole, and the fourth-level areas of 2,356 and 2,927 square feet are consistent with double-height volumes at the top. Confirm both against the recorded plan.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The assessor carries forty-two condominium parcels on Tract 40252 at this address, running consecutively as units one to forty-two with nothing before and nothing after. Published directories give twenty-seven, which the record does not support. Forty-two is the number that governs: it sets the assessment base that funds the pool, spa, sauna, gym, recreation room, lift, parking and envelope, and it sets each owner's share of every one of those. A larger membership than the directories suggest is, on balance, good news for the budget, because the same lift, pool and roof are being paid for by half again as many owners.
Assessor addresses run 101 to 115, then 201 to 209, 301 to 309 and 401 to 409. That is fifteen residences on the first level and nine on each of the three above, which points to a plate that consolidates as it rises. The sampled areas follow the same logic: the first level carries the small one-bedroom homes at 671 to 968 square feet, while the third and fourth carry homes of 1,746 to 2,927. Confirm the count and configuration on your target floor from the recorded plan rather than from a floor-plan sheet.
This is one of the widest size ranges in any Santa Monica condominium of comparable scale. Unit 110 is recorded at 671 square feet with one bedroom; unit 409 at 2,927 square feet with four bedrooms and four bathrooms. In between the roll shows 792, 885, 968, 1,474, 1,746 and 2,356 square feet. A published directory gives the identical 671 to 2,927 span. Assessor areas and recorded plan areas are measured on different conventions, so read the plan before pricing anything per square foot, but the spread itself is not in doubt.
The two fourth-level homes sampled record effective years of 1994 and 1995 rather than 1990, which usually signals substantial later work rather than a later construction date. They are also the largest, at 2,356 and 2,927 square feet, with three and four bedrooms respectively. Together with directory descriptions of multi-level plans and ceilings near eighteen feet, that points to top-floor homes conceived and finished differently from the rest. If the penthouse level is what you are buying, ask for the permit history as well as the plan, and ask whether the volume is original to 1990 or the result of the mid-1990s work.
A high-specification Santa Monica condominium of 1990 typically means defined rather than open circulation, a separate dining room, a kitchen conceived as a working room, a primary suite with generous closets and a double vanity, and balconies treated as real outdoor rooms rather than as ledges. Directories here add designer kitchens and multiple sun decks. Buyers who want a fully open plan should assume a wall comes out, and should ask the association what structural review, acoustic separation and permit route that requires before making an offer conditional on it.
No published source states how parking is allocated in this building, how many spaces attach to a given home, or whether storage is included. In a 1990 Santa Monica building of this size the usual arrangement is a subterranean garage with deeded or exclusive-use spaces, often two for the larger plans and one for the small first-level homes, but that is a pattern rather than a fact about this address. Read the allocation off the title report and the declaration, and physically check the space dimensions and column positions against your own vehicle before you commit.
Due Diligence
Forty-two separately assessed parcels on recorded condominium Tract 40252, created 25 July 1990, coded 010C. The 010C code matters: it identifies a building designed and mapped as a condominium from the outset, as distinct from code 010E, which the assessor applies to apartment buildings later converted. Purpose-built stock generally carries better sound separation, better metering and cleaner common-area definition than a conversion of the same era, and it avoids the tenant-protection history that attaches to Santa Monica conversions.
Published sources give twenty-seven homes; the assessor carries forty-two. This is not a rounding difference, and it changes the arithmetic on everything from reserve contributions to voting. When you read the disclosure package, check that the association's own documents recite forty-two units and that the reserve study is built on that number. If a budget or a reserve study is running on a different count, that is a question for the manager before it is a question for your lender.
The Los Angeles City ordinances 183893 and 184081 do not apply here. Santa Monica's mandatory programme was adopted by Ordinance 2537CCS on 28 March 2017 and updated in October 2025. Its soft-storey chapter reaches wood-frame buildings built under code standards enacted before 10 November 1980; its non-ductile concrete chapter reaches concrete buildings constructed before 11 January 1977. A 1990 building falls outside both date tests. That is an exclusion from mandatory programmes, not a statement about performance.
A building permitted in the late 1980s was designed under a code cycle that predates the Northridge earthquake of 1994 and the wood-frame and steel moment-frame detailing revisions that followed it. That is not a defect and it triggers no mandatory retrofit, but it is the reason an engineer's walk-through is still worth the fee on a building of this age. Ask whether any voluntary strengthening has ever been carried out, and whether the association holds an engineer's report of any kind.
Santa Monica's rent control charter amendment covers residential units built before 10 April 1979. A 1990 building sits outside the rent ceiling provisions. It does not sit outside the city's wider tenant framework, which extends just-cause eviction protection to multi-unit buildings not covered by rent control. If you plan to let the home, take advice on which protections attach, and note that Civil Code section 4741 prevents an association from setting a rental cap below twenty-five per cent of units.
Under Santa Monica Municipal Code Chapter 6.20, letting a home for thirty days or less without the resident host on site is a prohibited vacation rental. Home-sharing with the host present requires a city permit, a business licence, transient occupancy tax registration, at least five hundred thousand dollars of liability cover and compliance with occupancy and vehicle limits. The city has enforced this against the major platforms and won. Whatever the city permits, the association's own rules may be stricter, so read them.
Directories describe multiple balconies and sun decks, which makes the exterior elevated element inspection regime directly relevant. Civil Code section 5551 requires associations to have wood-framed balconies and walkways more than six feet above ground inspected by a licensed structural engineer or architect, with the first round due by 1 January 2025 and repeats every nine years. Ask for the report, the classification of each element, the repair schedule and how any recommended work is being funded.
Forty-two homes fund a pool, a spa, a sauna, an exercise room, a recreation room, a lift, parking and the envelope of a four-storey building. That is a real plant, and pool, spa and sauna are the items most likely to generate deferred maintenance and utility cost. Read the reserve study required by Civil Code section 5550, the last three years of financials and the minutes, and ask directly what the pool and spa equipment replacement schedule looks like and whether any special assessment has been discussed.
Everything above is drawn from public records, city permit data and published sources. The association’s statutory disclosure package is the only authoritative answer on dues, rules, reserves, insurance and litigation — Ben will request it and read it with you before you remove contingencies.
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