About the Building
Park Westwood Towers stands at 969 Hilgard Avenue, and the Los Angeles County Assessor confirms both what it is now and what it was. It is a for-sale condominium: 135 separately assessed homes running across parcel numbers 4360-001-022 through 4360-001-156, each carrying the legal description Tract 29367, Condominium, followed by a unit number from one to 135. Every one of them is coded 010E on the roll. That is the assessor's classification for a condominium created by conversion rather than one built as a condominium, and it is the fact that explains almost everything else about how this building works.
The conversion reading is corroborated by the architectural record. The Pacific Coast Architecture Database attributes Park Westwood Tower to Victor Gruen Associates, dates the design to 1960, records the contractor as Moss Construction Company, and describes a thirteen-storey building of 144 apartment units. The assessor gives 1961 as the year built and 1964 as the effective year. Those dates are close enough to describe the same project, with the gap between them the usual one between structural completion and full assessment. The unit counts differ for a plainer reason: 144 apartments became 135 deeded homes, which is what happens when units are combined or absorbed into common and service space.
The Gruen attribution deserves emphasis because it is frequently repeated by listing aggregators without a source. Here it is not an aggregator claim. Victor Gruen Associates is the practice that produced Northland and Southdale, the Pacific Design Center and Santa Monica Place, and in Westwood the firm's residential work includes the Wilshire Terrace building as well as this one. A Gruen tower on Hilgard in 1960 sits at the exact moment the practice was translating its commercial planning instincts into vertical housing. That lineage is documented by a university-hosted architectural database rather than by a real estate directory, which is why it can be stated plainly.
The county roll describes the building's stacking with unusual precision. Unit 1 is addressed number 101 and unit 4 is number 104, so four homes occupy the ground level. Units 5 through 12 are addressed 201 through 208, so eight occupy the second. From the third floor upward the pattern regularises at twelve homes to a level: unit 19 is number 307, unit 39 is number 503, unit 79 is number 807, unit 99 is number 1003 and unit 124 is number 1204. Units 133 through 135 are addressed PH 1 through PH 3. Four, plus eight, plus ten floors of twelve, plus three penthouses, is exactly 135.
That arithmetic also settles a published disagreement. Directories variously give the building thirteen and fourteen floors; the roll's own addressing supports twelve numbered residential levels plus a penthouse level above them, which is thirteen, and the Pacific Coast Architecture Database independently records thirteen storeys. Sampled areas are modest by corridor standards: 678 square feet at unit 4, 728 at unit 39, 743 at unit 9, 751 at unit 124, and 909 and 958 square feet in two-bedroom homes at units 12 and 79. A directory publishes a wider range extending to three-bedroom homes; the roll's sample sits at the compact end.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The building's core product is a compact one-bedroom, one-bathroom home. Sampled areas of 678, 728, 743 and 751 square feet appear at units 4, 39, 9 and 124 respectively, spread from the ground floor to the twelfth. Homes of that size in a 1960 concrete tower typically carry a separate entry hall, a galley kitchen, a defined living room and a balcony, because open-plan living had not yet displaced the room-by-room layout. Many have since been opened up. Ask when the kitchen wall came down, whether a permit was pulled, and whether the association required an engineer to sign off on anything that touched structure.
Units 12 and 79 record 909 and 958 square feet with two bedrooms and one bathroom apiece. That combination is a period signature and it is worth understanding before you tour. In 1960, a second bedroom did not automatically bring a second bathroom, and a nine hundred square foot two-bedroom with one bath was a normal middle-market apartment. Today it prices at a discount to a two-bath home of the same size. Some owners have added a second bathroom; doing so in a concrete building means core drilling and a new connection to a shared waste stack, which requires association consent and a permit.
Units 39, 99 and 135 are addressed 503, 1003 and PH 3, and all three record 728 square feet as one-bedroom, one-bathroom homes. That identifies a single plan stacked continuously up the building on the same line, from the low floors to the penthouse level. Repeating stacks are the most useful thing a valuer can find, because the homes differ only by elevation, light and the work each owner has done. If you are buying in the 03 line, the sale history of the line itself is a better guide than the building average, and the premium for height is measurable rather than theoretical.
Units 1 through 4, addressed 101 to 104, are the only homes on the entry level and unit 4 records 678 square feet as a one-bedroom. Ground-floor homes in a tower sit alongside the lobby, the management office and the service route, which brings convenience and noise in the same package. They also tend to have patio-style outdoor space at grade rather than a cantilevered balcony. Establish whether that space is deeded, exclusive-use common area or simply adjacent common area you are permitted to use, because only the first gives you any control over it.
From the third level upward the plate carries twelve homes, which is dense and tells you the corridors are long and most homes are single-aspect. Light arrives from one elevation only unless you are at a corner, and corner positions at the ends of each run are correspondingly scarce and correspondingly priced. When you tour, establish which way your prospective home faces. North and east look toward the campus and the hills, west and south toward Wilshire and the corridor towers, and the difference in afternoon heat gain on a west elevation is not trivial in a 1960 building.
Units 133, 134 and 135 are designated PH 1, PH 2 and PH 3 on the roll and occupy the level above the twelfth floor. Unit 135 records 728 square feet, matching the 03 line below it, so the penthouse designation here reflects position rather than a different plan. What the top level genuinely delivers is no neighbour overhead, the longest views in the building, and the closest relationship to the roof and its plant. Ask when the roof membrane was last replaced, what the reserve study assumes for its remaining life, and whether any mechanical equipment sits directly above a bedroom.
Due Diligence
Every home here is coded 010E on the county roll, the assessor's classification for a condominium created by converting an existing building. The architectural record agrees: this was designed and occupied as a 144-unit apartment house before a recorded map cut it into deeded homes. Party walls, plumbing risers, electrical service and acoustic separation were all set by 1960 apartment practice. Buyers who assume purpose-built condominium detailing are the ones who get surprised by shared waste stacks and sound transmission.
The assessor's quality class of B95C places the structure in the reinforced concrete class, and the building was permitted well before 13 January 1977. That is the cut-off for the City of Los Angeles non-ductile concrete retrofit programme, which requires covered owners to submit a screening checklist within three years of an Order to Comply, plans within ten years, and completed construction within twenty-five. Ask the association directly whether it has received an Order, whether a checklist has been filed, and what the engineer concluded. This is the largest financial question in the building.
Aggregator pages that credit Victor Gruen for this building are, unusually, correct. The Pacific Coast Architecture Database records Park Westwood Tower under Victor Gruen Associates with a 1960 date, names Moss Construction Company as builder, and cites a 1962 Los Angeles Times reference to the project. That is an academic database rather than a listing site. It does not make the building a designated landmark, and no historic designation is claimed here, but it does mean the authorship can be stated without hedging.
The architectural record gives 144 apartment units; the roll gives 135 deeded homes. The nine-unit difference is the ordinary arithmetic of conversion, produced by combining adjacent units, converting some to common facilities, or reserving space for management and staff. It is worth asking the association which of those happened, because combined units are often the largest homes in the building and are worth identifying before you assume the roll's compact sample describes everything on offer.
The association's own site describes a 24-hour lobby attendant, a heated pool and spa, valet parking, a parking garage and in-house maintenance. That service level is unusual for homes of six to nine hundred square feet and it is the building's defining commercial characteristic. Staffed service has to be paid for monthly, so expect dues that look high relative to unit size and are entirely rational relative to what they buy. Ask for the current budget and check what proportion goes to payroll.
The building sits one block north of Wilshire Boulevard without being on it, which places it outside the Wilshire Corridor specific plan's tower geography while sharing its amenities and its traffic. Practically, that means Village walkability and campus proximity without the corridor's setbacks, height caps or per-unit pricing. Compared with the corridor towers to the west, this is smaller stock at a materially lower entry price, on a street with a different daily character.
A block off campus, one and two-bedroom homes attract a mixture of owner-occupiers, university-linked buyers and investors letting to graduate students and staff. Rental density affects lender treatment, so establish the current owner-occupancy percentage and any rental cap in the CC&Rs before you rely on financing. Some lenders apply stricter terms above a threshold of investor ownership, and in a 135-home building the figure moves. Ask the management company for the current count in writing.
Request the CC&Rs, the current budget, the reserve study and its funding percentage, twenty-four months of board minutes, the master insurance declarations including any earthquake coverage, and the full special assessment history. Add two items specific to this building: any correspondence with the Department of Building and Safety concerning the non-ductile concrete programme, and the recorded condominium plan showing the boundaries of your home, your balcony and your parking.
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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