Today’s “Around the world in LA” residence is probably not going to seem that special to Angelenos, I fear. But the fact that this place is met with, “Yeah, that place. Yawn…” just serves to further cement the fact that Los Angeles is truly a fantastic place. Today’s ho-hum residence is the Snow White Cottages in Silver Lake:
Some nice facts about the eight Snow White Cottages:
- They were originally the homes for Disney animators in the ’30s working on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (sic). The Disney Studios were just around the corner.
- I know a somewhat short of stature songwriter who lives in one of the cottages. If he were one of the Seven Dwarves, I think he would be named Wistful.
- These cottages are just down the street from Marshall High School, which is famous for educating Miss America 1941 and being the site of the school carnival scene at the end of Grease where Olivia Newton-John gets all slutted up for John Travolta.
- I also have a friend who lived here after he kicked a nasty drug habit. I guess now that he’s clean he would neither be Dopey nor Sleepy.
- The cottages were featured in the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive. Unlike some other David Lynch productions, Mulholland Drive did not feature any dwarves.
- Elliott Smith also used to live here. Maybe he could have been Dopey or Sleepy.
- There are a bunch of other Black Forest-y sorts of houses nearby, including Walt Disney’s old residence, but I felt this post was getting too long to include them here.
- These cottages are in need of some basic maintenance. Unfortunately, the landlady appears to be ruining the Snow White Cottages by repairing the roofs with cheap tarpaper rather than the intricate thatchwork they had originally.
Go check them out before they’re completely cheapo-refurbed over.
