New Partner Ben Kahle’s Historic Neighborhood & Home Officially Recognized

New deasy penner podley partner, Benjamin Kahle, is a native Angeleno, a passionate student of architecture, and the proud owner of the first historic home in all of Unincorporated LA County.

As a resident of the View Park neighborhood of Los Angeles and a co-founder of the non-profit View Park Conservancy, he led a three-year initiative to have View Park listed on the National Register of Historic Places – a distinction the neighborhood was awarded just last week.

View Park is comprised of nearly 1,800 homes, many of which were designed by notable architects such as the Los Angeles Investment Company, Postle & Postle, R.F. Ruck, Paul Haynes, Leopold Fischer, H. Roy Kelley, Raphael Soriano, Charles W. Wong, Robert Earl, M.C. Drebbin, Vincent Palmer, Theodore Pletsch, Homer C. Valentine and renown African American architect, Paul Williams. It is now the largest National Register historic district in the Country based on African American history, and the largest in California in terms of total property owners.

Benjamin purchased his home – The Doumakes House – in 2012. At that time, it had no working plumbing, no heat, faulty wiring, a leaky roof and a top floor that hadn’t been inhabitable in fifteen years. It also possessed amazing original 1920s details such as iron light sconces, door brass, bathroom tiles, wooden windows, wooden floors and several unique, hand-carved wooden doors.After an extensive and meticulous rehab, Benjamin nominated his home to be an individual historic landmark. As luck would have it, he was the first to submit a bid to the Board of Supervisors after their adoption of the historic preservation ordinance for Unincorporated Los Angeles County in September 2015. As a result, in April of this year, the Doumakes House became the first historic home in all of Unincorporated LA County.