About the Building
Westwood Gardens occupies 1300 Midvale Avenue and the Los Angeles County Assessor confirms it as a genuine for-sale condominium. Sixty separately assessed homes run across parcel numbers 4324-005-025 through 4324-005-084, each carrying the legal description Tract 29804, portion of Lot 1, Condominium Unit, followed by a number and the phrase airspace and one sixtieth interest in common area. That fraction is written into every legal description, which makes sixty a recorded fact rather than a directory estimate. Every home is coded 010E on the roll, the assessor's classification for a condominium created by conversion rather than built as one.
The conversion reading is reinforced by the dates. The roll gives 1968 as the year built and 1973 as the effective year, a five-year gap that in assessor practice usually reflects substantial improvement or a change in the character of the property rather than construction itself. A building put up as apartments in 1968 and mapped as a condominium in the early 1970s fits that pattern exactly, and it places this among the first wave of Westwood apartment houses converted for sale. What it means practically is that the party walls, risers and parking were all laid out to 1968 apartment standards, with ownership boundaries drawn around them afterwards.
The building's shape can be read directly off the roll. Unit 1 is addressed number 201; unit 21 is number 309; unit 46 is number 510; unit 60 is number 612. Twelve homes on each of five levels, stepping one floor for every twelve unit numbers, from the second storey to the sixth, is exactly sixty. Nothing is numbered on the ground floor. That absence is the single most important structural fact about the building, because it means the first storey is given over to parking and entry rather than to habitable rooms, which is the definition of a tuck-under building.
Sampled areas are consistent and mid-sized. Unit 21, at number 309, records 886 square feet as a one-bedroom, one-bathroom home. Unit 60, at number 612, records 938 square feet as a one-bedroom with two bathrooms. Unit 1, at number 201, records 1,038 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and unit 46, at number 510, records 1,156 square feet in the same configuration. A published directory gives a wider range of 765 to 1,400 square feet and describes homes from one to three bedrooms; the county's sample sits inside that range without reaching either end.
The building's commercial character follows from all of this. Sixty homes of nine hundred to twelve hundred square feet, in a wood-framed block with a pool, a spa and controlled access, on a Westwood street with good access in every direction, is entry-to-middle-market Westwood ownership. It is not a full-service tower and does not price like one. It is the kind of building where the quality of the association's capital planning matters more than the finish level of any individual home, because everything a buyer is exposed to here is shared: the frame, the parking level, the plumbing stacks and the roof.
Amenities & Services
The Residences
The county's addressing gives 201 to 212, 301 to 312, and so on through 601 to 612. Twelve homes to a plate is a dense arrangement and it tells you the corridors are long and most homes are single-aspect, with light arriving from one elevation only. Corner and end positions at the ends of each run are the exception and price accordingly. When you tour, establish which way your prospective home faces and how far it sits from the lift and the refuse chute, because on a twelve-home corridor those two things vary more than any finish.
Unit 21, addressed number 309, records 886 square feet with one bedroom and one bathroom. Homes of that size in a 1968 building are generous by modern one-bedroom standards, and typically carry a separate entry, a defined dining area and a balcony off the living room rather than the open plan a contemporary developer would build. That extra circulation is what a buyer is paying for. Many owners have removed the kitchen wall. Ask when, whether a permit was pulled, and whether the association required any sign-off in a wood-framed building where interior walls can be structural.
Unit 60, at number 612, records 938 square feet with one bedroom and two bathrooms. That combination is a period signature and worth understanding: a principal suite plus a second full bathroom serving a den or entertaining room rather than a second bedroom. Buyers routinely see conversion potential and some owners have taken it. Whether a den has been legally converted, and whether it has the window area and egress a bedroom requires, is a question for the permit history at Building and Safety rather than for the listing sheet or the floor plan.
Unit 1, at number 201, records 1,038 square feet with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and unit 46, at number 510, records 1,156 in the same configuration. These are the building's core family plans and the ones that hold value best. The difference between them is roughly a hundred square feet and four floors, which is a useful natural experiment when you are pricing: the same plan family on different levels gives you the height premium in this specific building rather than a market-wide assumption. Ask for the closing history of both size bands.
Units 49 through 60, addressed 601 to 612, occupy the top of the building. Top-floor homes here gain the best light, no neighbour overhead and usually the least corridor noise, and take on the roof as their nearest maintenance neighbour. In a wood-framed building the roof and its flashings are the most consequential shared asset after the frame itself. Ask when the membrane was last replaced, what the reserve study assumes for its remaining life, and whether any home on the level has a history of water intrusion at the ceiling or at a balcony threshold.
Homes of this era and type generally carry a private balcony off the living room, and listing sources for this building describe generous balconies and fireplaces. Both are worth verifying individually. A cantilevered timber balcony on a 1968 wood-framed building is exactly the assembly California associations have been required to inspect and report on in recent years, and a gas or wood fireplace may be subject to association rules and to air quality restrictions. Ask whether a balcony inspection has been carried out, what it found, and whether repairs were funded from reserves.
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. Combined with a 1968 year built and a 1973 effective year, that describes an apartment house mapped for separate sale in the early 1970s. Party walls, plumbing risers, electrical service and acoustic separation were set by 1968 apartment practice. Ask the association about its plumbing history in particular, because shared waste stacks are the most common source of trouble in buildings of this description.
The city's mandatory soft-storey retrofit programme covers wood-frame buildings of two or more storeys, built before 1 January 1978, with ground-floor parking or similar open space, and more than three residential units. This building is wood-framed by the assessor's own quality class, dates from 1968, has no habitable rooms numbered on the ground floor and holds sixty homes. It matches every criterion. Ask the association directly whether an Order to Comply was received, whether retrofit plans were filed, and whether the work is complete.
Under the ordinance an owner has two years from an Order to Comply to submit proof of retrofit or plans, three and a half years to pull a permit, and seven years to complete construction. In a condominium the frame and the parking level are common area, so the cost falls on the association and reaches owners as a reserve draw or a special assessment. If the work has already been done, that is a material asset and should be reflected in price. If it has not, obtain the engineer's scope and the funding plan before you commit.
Sixty homes is large enough for professional management and small enough that a single capital event is felt by everyone. Read the reserve study, its funding percentage and three years of minutes together rather than separately, because the minutes tell you whether the study is being acted on. In a wood-framed 1968 building the items that matter are the frame and any retrofit, the plumbing stacks, the roof, the balconies and the pool plant, roughly in that order of cost.
The lot records 30,621 square feet with LAR4 zoning, which permits substantially higher density than the R3 that governs much of Westwood's low-rise stock. Sixty homes on that lot is consistent with a site developed close to its permitted capacity. There is accordingly no residual development potential for the association to monetise, and no realistic prospect of the building's massing changing. What you see on Midvale today is what the site supports.
Because the first storey holds the cars, parking is integral to the structure rather than subterranean, and it is usually assigned rather than deeded. Establish from the title report and the recorded plan whether your spaces are deeded, assigned or exclusive-use common area, and whether the ground floor has been fitted for electric vehicle charging. Any soft-storey retrofit will involve work in this space, which can mean temporary loss of spaces during construction. Ask how the association proposes to handle that.
The 1300 block of Midvale sits between Wilshire and Santa Monica, closer to the latter, on a street of similar buildings. Westwood Village and campus are a genuine walk rather than a stroll; Century City, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and the 405 are all short drives. The Expo Line at Sepulveda and the Wilshire rapid bus corridor are both realistic alternatives to driving. Test your own commute at the hour you would actually make it, because Westwood travel times are governed by time of day far more than by distance.
Request the recorded condominium plan for Tract 29804, the CC&Rs, the current budget, the reserve study with its funding percentage, twenty-four months of board minutes, master insurance declarations including earthquake cover, and the full special assessment history. Add two items specific to this building: any Department of Building and Safety correspondence concerning the soft-storey retrofit programme, and any balcony or exterior elevated element inspection report the association currently holds on file.
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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