House painting in Hollywood usually means a house or bungalow court from the 1910s through the 1930s, when film production arrived in 1911 and housing rose beside the studios. Five Historic Preservation Overlay Zones in the Hollywood Community Plan Area each work from their own Preservation Plan, and their paint rules do not match.
Our crews travel from Simi Valley, and we have been painting homes since 1988. Before quoting, we confirm whether your street falls inside one of those districts, then write up prep, colors and price line by line.
Studio-Era Bungalows, Courts and Postwar Stucco
Hollywood began as a farm town, incorporated in 1903 and joined Los Angeles in 1910. Streetcar track reached Prospect Avenue, now Hollywood Boulevard, in 1900, and the studio boom of the 1910s through the 1930s filled the flats with modest houses and many kinds of multifamily housing.
SurveyLA recorded Craftsman, American Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Tudor Revival and French Norman houses, mostly from those decades. After World War II, stucco apartments went in as infill, and in the 1960s and 1970s larger complexes replaced many houses and courts. One Hayworth Avenue block went from 25 bungalows in 1950 to mostly dingbat apartments, 174 units in all, by 1969.
In ZIP 90028, which covers only central Hollywood, the median unit dates to 1967 and about a quarter predate 1940. The nearest normals come from the downtown station about five miles southeast, where August highs average 84°F and most of the yearly 14.25 inches of rain falls from December through March.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake shook Hollywood at intensity VIII, with major damage to unreinforced masonry along a 2-mile stretch around Hollywood Boulevard and some wood-frame apartments shifting on their foundations. We check stucco and plaster for cracks before pricing any job here.
Spaulding Square, Sunset Square, Whitley Heights and Their Neighbors
Spaulding Square holds about 160 mostly one-story homes from 1916 to 1926, and Sunset Square covers 348 parcels between Hollywood Boulevard, Vista Street, Sunset Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. Whitley Heights is a Mediterranean hillside village built mostly from 1918 to 1928 and split by the Hollywood Freeway.
Near the edges of Hollywood proper, 45 homes on Melrose Hill are reached only by Marathon Street, and Hollywood Grove fills a former avocado grove with Craftsman and Colonial Revival bungalows. Outside the HPOZs, SurveyLA flagged the Sierra Bonita-Hawthorn Craftsman blocks and the Orange Grove-Selma Period Revival blocks as eligible districts, a survey finding rather than a designation.
House Painting in Hollywood, District by District
Studio-era courts, period houses and postwar stucco each call for different prep. Here is how our services apply on Hollywood streets.
HPOZ Color Consultation by District
In Whitley Heights and Spaulding Square, repainting in the existing colors is exempt and new colors go to staff review, while Hollywood Grove exempts new colors outright. Sunset Square's posted plan, a file labeled June 2016 Draft, exempts colors suited to the house's style. Melrose Hill lists painting under neither exemptions nor delegated items, so confirm with staff first. Our color consultation, available case by case, works inside whichever plan applies.
Bungalow Court Exteriors
Large colonies of bungalow courts went up within blocks of the studios, mostly in the 1920s, and SurveyLA counts 116 eligible courts across the plan area. Most have been altered, so one court can mix original wood trim, newer windows and later stucco. Our exterior house painting treats the cottages around a shared walk as one color plan, with porches, doors and trim prepared by hand.
Spanish Colonial Stucco
Spanish Colonial Revival houses and courts in the flats pair stucco walls with clay tile trim and coping, and postwar dingbats add flat stucco boxes to the same blocks. We clean and fill cracks, then match sand or smooth texture so repairs disappear. Through stucco repair and painting, we also keep paint off stone or masonry that was never painted, which the district paint exemptions leave out.
Craftsman Dry Rot Repair Before Painting
Craftsman houses here show low gables, broad eaves and exposed rafters, and Hollywood Grove's guidelines ask owners to keep eave depth and rafter tails. When a rafter end or fascia board has gone soft, we fill it with epoxy or fit a matching piece as part of the repaint. Our dry rot and trim repair is prep for exterior painting only, never a separate job.
Interior Painting for 1920s Bungalows
Inside a studio-era bungalow, original doors, casings and built-ins may carry many layers, and plaster walls show decades of patching. We sand edges smooth, spot-prime repairs and cut tight lines along woodwork. HPOZ review centers on exterior work, so rooms inside are usually simpler to schedule. See interior house painting for bungalow rooms.
Hollywood Permits, Plans and Fire Rules
LADBS issues building permits for Hollywood, while HPOZ review goes through City Planning under each district's Preservation Plan. The Hollywood Community Plan was comprehensively updated in January 2025, and demolishing a building 45 years or older needs at least 30 days of public notice.
LAFD lists portions of Hollywood in the Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. On January 8, 2025, the Sunset Fire started off Solar Drive in the hills and burned 43 acres, with evacuation orders reaching south to Hollywood Boulevard.
Statewide, the Wildland-Urban Interface Code in Title 24, Part 7 superseded CBC Chapter 7A as of January 1, 2026. The City's own WUI ordinance and its adoption of the 2025 fire maps are both still pending, so parcel status in the hills is not settled.
