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About Arthur Kelly
Arthur Roland Kelly (B.Arch., University of Illinois, 1902) was one of Los Angeles’s most accomplished residential architects of the early twentieth century. He studied architecture at the University of Illinois under the influential architect and educator Nathan Clifford Ricker, graduating in 1902. After a three-month tour of Europe, where he studied historic architecture, Kelly settled in Los Angeles later that year. He soon joined the Pasadena office of Greene & Greene, where his early experience exposed him to the Arts and Crafts tradition and the brothers’ highly refined approach to materials, craftsmanship, and residential design. This early association had a lasting influence on Kelly’s work.
Kelly established his own practice within a few years and became known for designing distinctive residences and buildings inspired by historic European architecture. His early work included Craftsman and Colonial Revival houses, but by the 1920s he had become particularly recognized for Spanish Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival architecture. Working during a period of extraordinary growth in Los Angeles, Kelly designed homes for many of the city’s most prominent residents, particularly in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, and San Marino. His architecture was characterized by picturesque massing, carefully crafted details, and romantic interpretations of historic European precedents adapted to the Southern California landscape.
Among Kelly’s most famous works is the mansion he designed for Arthur Letts Jr. in 1927 in Holmby Hills, now widely known as the Playboy Mansion. Designed in a Gothic Tudor style, the house features steeply pitched roofs, elaborate windows, and details inspired by historic English estates. Another major work is the William S. Hart estate in Newhall, a Spanish Colonial Revival residence completed in the 1920s for the celebrated actor and director of Western films. The house incorporated decorative details and artwork reflecting Hart’s interest in the American West and is now preserved as the William S. Hart Museum. Kelly also designed the Westlake School for Girls, the Wilshire Country Club, the Christie Hotel, and numerous distinguished residences throughout Los Angeles and Pasadena.
Kelly’s career extended beyond grand private residences. The Baltimore Hotel in Los Angeles, which opened in 1910, was a large reside hotel designed to accommodate hundreds of occupants and was constructed as a reinforced-concrete, fireproof structure. His work demonstrates the breadth of his practice and his contribution to the development of Los Angeles as a growing urban center. Kelly was also active in the emerging architectural community of Southern California, serving as a juror for early architectural exhibitions alongside such prominent architects as Charles and Henry Greene, Irving Gill, and Elmer Grey. His influence extended to the next generation of architects as well. Paul Revere Williams, FAIA who would become one of the most important architects in American history, worked in Kelly’s office from 1917 to 1921, gaining valuable professional experience while studying architectural engineering at USC. Williams later became the first African American architect licensed in California, the first African American member of the AIA and AIA Gold Medalist, the gaining the highest honor the profession bestows on its members.
Kelly’s architectural legacy remains an important part of the history and identity of Southern California. His designs combined European architectural traditions with the landscape, lifestyle, and aspirations of early twentieth-century Los Angeles, helping establish the romantic architectural character for which the region became known. The preservation of properties such as 1299 Hillcrest Avenue in Pasadena, identified by the city as a locally significant work by Kelly and an example of English Arts and Crafts residential architecture, demonstrates the lasting value of his work. Through his own buildings, his early experience with Greene & Greene, and his influence on architects such as Paul Revere Williams, Arthur Roland Kelly helped shape the architectural culture of Southern California and left a legacy that continues to be recognized and preserved today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rolland_Kelly
Anthony Heinsbergen and the Decorative Arts of Casa del Alta Cañada
Anthony Heinsbergen and the Decorative Arts of Casa del Alta Cañada
Anthony Heinsbergen, also known as A. B. Heinsbergen, was one of the most accomplished decorative artists and muralists working in Los Angeles during the first half of the twentieth century. Born Antoon Heinsbergen in the Netherlands in 1894, he began his training as an apprentice to a restoration painter when he was only ten years old. After immigrating to Los Angeles with his father in 1906, he continued his apprenticeship with the Parker Decorating Company while also studying at the newly established Chouinard Art Institute. His early mastery of decorative painting led to remarkable advancement at a young age, and he eventually established the A. B. Heinsbergen Decorating Company, which became one of the most important architectural decorating firms in Southern California.
Heinsbergen became particularly celebrated for the extraordinary interiors he created for the great movie palaces of the 1920s and 1930s. His firm employed a large corps of decorative painters and completed hundreds of projects throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Among his best-known Los Angeles commissions were the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, the Los Angeles Theatre, the Wiltern Theatre, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Biltmore Hotel, and Los Angeles City Hall. His work encompassed murals, ornamental painting, stenciling, decorative ceilings, architectural ornament, and painted finishes. Heinsbergen was exceptionally versatile, adapting his work to Spanish Renaissance, Mediterranean, Art Deco, Baroque, and other historical and exotic styles.
It was this extraordinary talent for transforming architecture through painted ornament that brought Heinsbergen to Arthur Roland Kelly's home, now known as Casa del Alta Cañada. Kelly commissioned Heinsbergen to provide decorative painting for the house, bringing the skills of one of Los Angeles's leading muralists and architectural decorators into a much more intimate residential setting. Among the most remarkable surviving elements are the painted beams in the living room, where animal heads serve as sculptural corbels, together with decorative stenciling on doors, cabinets, and other architectural surfaces. The work demonstrates how the elaborate vocabulary Heinsbergen developed for theaters, hotels, and civic buildings could be translated into the scale of a private home, creating an interior that is both theatrical and deeply connected to the Arts and Crafts tradition of handcrafted architectural decoration.
The Heinsbergen work is particularly important because it forms part of the artistic history of the house itself. Rather than treating architecture, furniture, and decoration as separate elements, Kelly used painted ornament to enrich the character of the interiors and to create a highly individual environment. Heinsbergen's decorative vocabulary complemented Kelly's architecture by adding color, pattern, imagery, and a sense of handcrafted richness. The painted beams and animal-headed corbels are especially distinctive, giving the living room an almost storybook quality while reinforcing the house's connection to the California tradition of rustic and picturesque architecture.
When Burch and Wilk undertook the restoration of Casa del Alta Cañada, the surviving Heinsbergen decoration became an important part of the restoration. The original stenciling was carefully restored, and additional stenciling was introduced where appropriate, drawing directly upon the patterns, colors, and decorative vocabulary of the original Heinsbergen work. The intention was not to imitate the historic decoration indiscriminately, but to extend its language in a way that would make the restored interiors feel coherent with Kelly's original vision. In this way, the restoration preserves not only the architecture of Arthur Roland Kelly but also the contribution of Anthony Heinsbergen, whose painted decoration helped give Casa del Alta Cañada its distinctive character and atmosphere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Heinsbergen
About Michael Burch, FAIA
Michael Burch (B.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.Arch., Yale University) was an architect widely recognized for his mastery of Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival architecture. Period Homes Magazine described him as “the greatest living practitioner of the Spanish Colonial/Mediterranean Revival,” reflecting his exceptional ability to interpret and advance these traditions through contemporary architectural practice.
Burch was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, an honor bestowed on a select group of architects whose work and contributions have demonstrated a significant standard of excellence. According to the AIA College of Fellows, “AIA Fellows are recognized with the AIA’s highest membership honor” for exceptional work, architectural excellence, and significant contributions to architecture and the profession.
Throughout his career, Burch was deeply committed to the study and practice of traditional architecture. His work drew particularly upon the Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean traditions that became an important part of Southern California's architectural identity during the early twentieth century. His buildings were distinguished by their attention to proportion, materials, craftsmanship, landscape, and the relationship between architecture and place.
Burch was also a dedicated educator. He taught architecture at Yale University, the University of Southern California, and UCLA, sharing his knowledge of architectural history, design, and traditional building practices with successive generations of students. His academic and professional work reinforced his belief that traditional architecture could remain both historically grounded and relevant to contemporary life.
Michael Burch's career left a lasting contribution to the architectural heritage of California and to the broader revival of traditional architecture in the United States. Through his buildings, teaching, writing, and mentorship, he demonstrated how historical architectural traditions could be practiced with both scholarly understanding and creative discipline. Michael Burch passed away in August 2026, leaving behind a body of work that continues to exemplify the enduring qualities of Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival architecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burch
https://michaelburcharchitects.com/pile_portfolio/firm-profile/
Michael Burch and Diane Wilk both worked on the design and addition to the original Arthur Kelly house. Diane and Michael collaborated togehter for almost 30 years and she has now taken over the firm.
About Diane Wilk, AIA, NCARB
Diane Wilk is a California architect, architectural historian, educator, and preservationist whose career spans architectural practice, teaching, research, and historic preservation. A native Californian, she received her B.S. in Architecture from the University of Southern California in 1977 and her Master of Architecture from Yale University in 1981, followed by graduate study in architectural history at Stanford University. She is a registered architect in California and holds an NCARB certificate.
Before returning to California and joining Michael Burch Architects, Wilk was a tenured faculty member at the University of Colorado, where she served as Director of Graduate Programs in Architecture and Urban Design. She taught architectural design, drawing, and history and was a visiting critic at Yale, Columbia, Harvard, Syracuse University, and UC Berkeley. Her research focused particularly on architectural and landscape history, and she was instrumental in producing guidebooks documenting Denver's historic architecture. She has also published extensively on architectural and landscape history.
Wilk joined Michael Burch Architects in 1998, bringing her academic training and knowledge of architectural history to a practice specializing in California's Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival traditions of the 1920s and 1930s. As Director of Research, she has contributed historical research to the firm's projects while collaborating on architecture, interiors, landscapes, restorations, and historic preservation. Her work with Michael Burch has included the restoration and rehabilitation of significant Southern California residences and historic properties, combining historical research with careful attention to craftsmanship, materials, proportion, and architectural character.
Among their notable projects was the restoration of the Everett Babcock House in La Cañada Flintridge, recognized for its sensitive treatment of the original Spanish Colonial architecture. Wilk and Burch also advocated for Mills Act protection in La Cañada Flintridge, helping establish a mechanism for preserving historic properties. Their own residence, originally designed by Los Angeles architect Arthur Roland Kelly in the 1920s, exemplifies their preservation philosophy: the historic house was carefully restored and later expanded with a major addition designed to distinguish new construction from the original fabric while remaining sympathetic to its character.
Wilk has a particular interest in the architecture of California's mountain communities, especially Lake Arrowhead, where her family has had a connection since the 1940s. Summers spent there fostered an early appreciation of its distinctive historic architecture and eventually led to specialized research into the preservation and continuation of California's mountain architectural traditions. She and Burch have lectured for the American Institute of Architects and historical societies on interpreting California's architectural heritage in contemporary practice. Her most recent book, Lake Arrowhead Architecture, traces the development of the community's mountain architecture.
Throughout her career, Wilk has occupied a distinctive position between academia and practice. Her training in architecture and architectural history, combined with decades of teaching, research, writing, and professional practice, has shaped an approach that views architecture not simply as style, but as the product of history, craftsmanship, culture, and place. Her work has contributed to the preservation and continuation of California's architectural heritage while demonstrating how historic traditions can remain relevant in contemporary practice.
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