About the Building
Kelton Place is a four-storey building of 1983 at 1375 Kelton Avenue, and the Los Angeles County Assessor settles what it is before any listing sheet gets a chance to. Thirty-eight separately assessed parcels run consecutively from 4324-007-059 to 4324-007-096, each carrying the legal description Tract 41189, Lot 1, Condominium, followed by a unit number. Every one of them is coded 010C on the roll. That is the assessor's classification for a purpose-built condominium, as distinct from a converted apartment house or a co-operative. This is a genuine for-sale building, and it was drawn as a condominium from the first sheet.
The distinction is worth holding onto. A purpose-built condominium of the early 1980s was designed knowing that each home would be owned separately, which usually means demising walls detailed for sound, separate metering where the era allowed it, and a common-area boundary drawn deliberately rather than inferred after the fact. Converted buildings on these same blocks carry apartment-era plumbing stacks and floor assemblies that were never meant to sit between two owners. None of that makes a conversion a bad building, but it changes the questions you ask. Here the questions are about age of plant, not about original intent.
The unit numbering on the roll describes the building's shape with some precision. Homes are addressed 101 to 104 and 107 to 110 on the first residential level, then 201 to 210, 301 to 310 and 401 to 410 above. That is eight homes on the ground tier and ten on each of the three floors above, which accounts for all thirty-eight. The gap at 105 and 106 is the useful detail: something other than a residence occupies the middle of the ground-floor frontage, which on a building of this type and vintage is almost always the entry, the lobby and the vertical circulation.
Sampled areas across the roll are tighter than most buildings of this size. The assessor records 1,149 square feet for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 107, 1,285 square feet for the same configuration at 101, 201 and 401, and 1,557 square feet for a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 410. A condominium directory publishes a full range of 886 to 1,557 square feet, listing a single one-bedroom plan at 886 square feet, two-bedroom plans from 1,149 to 1,319 and a three-bedroom at 1,557. The upper and middle figures match the county record exactly. The 886 square foot plan did not appear in the assessor sample and should be confirmed against the recorded condominium plan.
Vintage matters here for one specific reason. Los Angeles Ordinance 183893 established the city's mandatory seismic programmes, and the wood-frame soft-storey provisions reach buildings for which the permit was applied for before 1 January 1978, while the non-ductile concrete provisions reach applications before 13 January 1977. A 1983 building sits outside both windows. Several older properties on the Kelton and Veteran blocks around it carry completed soft-storey retrofit permits in the city's own records; 1375 Kelton does not appear in that dataset, which is what you would expect of a building of this date rather than a finding about its structure.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The roll shows eight homes on the first tier and ten on each of the three above. Ten homes per floor on a 23,154 square foot lot means a compact plan with a single corridor and homes taking light from the street elevation on one side and a rear or courtyard elevation on the other. End positions on each run are the exception and carry two aspects rather than one. When you tour, establish which elevation your prospective home faces, whether its glazing is single-aspect, and how much of the fourth floor sits under open sky rather than under a neighbour.
The county records 1,285 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms at 101, 201 and 401, which means the same plan repeats vertically in at least one stack from the ground tier to the top. Repeating stacks are good news for a buyer: they produce true internal comparables, they make appraisal straightforward, and they usually indicate plumbing and mechanical risers running cleanly floor to floor. Ask which stack you are in, and ask the association whether any risers in that stack have been replaced or relined since 1983. Ask also what the plan looks like at the fourth level, where the stack terminates.
Unit 107 is recorded at 1,149 square feet, still with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. That is a materially different product from the 1,285 square foot plan even though the bedroom count matches, and in a building this small the difference will show up in price per square foot rather than in headline price. A directory publishes a two-bedroom band of 1,149 to 1,319 square feet, so there is likely a third two-bedroom size between the two the county roll gives. Work from the recorded plan and the parcel record for the specific unit, not from the band.
Unit 410 is recorded at 1,557 square feet with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, the largest figure the county returned for this building and the same top number a condominium directory publishes. In a four-storey building the top-floor homes are the ones with no neighbour above, which changes both the acoustics and the roof exposure. It also means the residence sits directly beneath whatever roof plant serves the building. Ask when the roof was last replaced, what warranty remains, and whether any mechanical equipment is mounted above your ceiling. Ask too whether the ceiling follows the roof line or sits flat beneath it.
A condominium directory lists a single one-bedroom plan at 886 square feet. Nothing in the assessor sample drawn from the county roll came in under 1,149 square feet, so treat 886 as plausible but unconfirmed. Small one-bedroom homes do exist in buildings of this vintage, usually tucked against a lift core or over the entry, and they trade differently from everything else in the association. If a one-bedroom is what you are buying, get the recorded condominium plan and the individual parcel record before you price it. A directory can be right and still be describing a plan that no longer exists as drawn.
Every square footage figure quoted here is the assessor's recorded main area for an individual parcel, derived from the condominium plan and field records. It will not always match a marketing sheet or a tape measure. The recorded plan is also the document that fixes where your ownership stops and common area begins, which on a building of this type usually places balconies, windows and the exterior face of the perimeter wall outside your title and inside an exclusive-use easement. Ask the association which elements it maintains, which it insures and which it merely regulates, because those three lists rarely align.
Due Diligence
The county roll is unambiguous: thirty-eight separately assessed parcels under Tract 41189, Lot 1, every one coded 010C, the assessor's code for a purpose-built condominium. Homes can be bought and financed individually. This is not a co-operative, where you would buy shares and a proprietary lease, and it is not a single-parcel apartment building being marketed as though units were for sale. Both errors are common on aggregator pages for Westside buildings of this size, and both are settled by the parcel record.
Los Angeles Ordinance 183893 covers wood-frame soft-storey buildings permitted before 1 January 1978 and non-ductile concrete buildings permitted before 13 January 1977. Built in 1983, this property falls outside both programmes, and it does not appear in the city's published soft-storey permit data. That is an absence of mandate, not an engineering opinion. Ask the association whether any voluntary strengthening has been carried out and whether an engineer has ever reported on the building.
California Civil Code section 5551, enacted by Senate Bill 326, requires associations of three or more multifamily units to have a licensed engineer or architect inspect exterior elevated elements with substantial load-bearing wood, balconies and walkways among them, with the first inspections due by 1 January 2025 and repeats every nine years. Ask for the completed report, the engineer's findings and the board's repair schedule. On a 1983 building with balconies on every elevation this is the single most informative document in the package.
California Civil Code section 5550 requires a reserve study at least every three years with a visual inspection, reviewed annually by the board, and section 5300 requires an annual budget report. On a four-storey building of this age the schedule is dominated by roofing, the lift, plumbing risers, exterior paint, waterproofing at the pool deck and the mechanical plant the assessor records as central refrigeration and heating. Read the study, the last two years of financials and the full special assessment history.
The association does not publish a schedule here, and the directory and aggregator numbers that circulate are unconfirmed and go out of date quietly, so this site does not carry one. The current figure for a specific home appears on the listing and in the statutory disclosure package. The statutory disclosure package under Civil Code section 4525 is the authoritative answer on the current assessment, the inclusions and any pending increase.
Directories describe controlled access with guest parking and extra storage at this address. What matters is the allocation attached to the individual unit, which appears on the title report and in the recorded condominium plan rather than on a marketing page. In early 1980s Westside buildings, parking is frequently held as an exclusive-use easement rather than owned outright, and tandem stalls are common. Confirm the number of spaces, their form of tenure, their dimensions, and whether the association permits an electric vehicle charger.
A directory states that pets are permitted subject to association rules, which normally signals limits on number, weight or breed rather than an open policy. On leasing, California Civil Code section 4741 prevents an association setting a rental cap below twenty-five per cent of units and permits a prohibition on tenancies of thirty days or less. Ask the board what it has actually adopted, what the current leased count is, and whether a waiting list applies.
Request the master policy declarations, the deductible and whether the policy is written on a bare walls or single entity basis, because that determines what your own HO-6 policy has to cover. Premiums on Westside associations have moved sharply in recent renewal cycles, and a large earthquake or water deductible passed through to owners shows up in the budget rather than in the marketing. Ask specifically whether earthquake coverage is carried, and at what limit.
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.
Common Questions
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