What brought me to the City of Angels (other than an impressive 65 inch wingspan) was our town’s ability to mold life to imitate art; any street in LA contains miniature worlds that its owners painstakingly built, and few more successfully than the Howard Arden Edwards residence.
Built in 1910 by renowned artist H. Arden Edwards (famous for his pastoral scenes of America’s rustic Southwest), the house is arguably his most immersive work: its earthy materials, quaint size, and craftsman touches (the sage green kitchen cabinets!) seem to be lifted directly from his quietly moving vistas of the Arizona and California desert. The artist took a more expressive (and fantastically whimsical) brush to many of the home’s walls; the numerous honey hued murals and lush trim are a marvel, but the real delight is spotting the artist’s handiwork around unassuming hat hooks and doorknobs.
The Howard Arden Edwards house is a chance to step inside the mind (and the work) of a man who saw the beauty in simplicity and the transformative power of a slight flick of the wrist.
|