Thompson Home
105 Hollywood Blvd
Although current owner Scott Thompson moved
into his new home just a few months ago, he graciously agreed to share it with the Hollywood Garden
Club as part of their 2015 Historic Home Tour. In
the months earlier, residents and passersby curiously
watched the seemingly whirlwind renovation of the
tired but charming stucco bungalow, a fixture on
Hollywood Boulevard for nearly 90 years. Builder
Matthew Gregory had purchased the house from the
estate of Betty Morrison, a longtime beloved Hollywood resident. With large crews working day and
night, often seven days a week, the transformation
of this lovely Spanish Colonial Revival home was
completed in less than 10 weeks!
Gregory’s painstaking “rehab” demonstrates how
a historic home can be updated while preserving
architecturally significant features and original charm.
With the exception of a previous owner enclosing an
open side porch, this house still occupies its original
footprint and looks remarkably as it did when first
built, original windows included.
One improvement was to open up the breakfast
room to the adjoining kitchen, gutting and updating the space and building a custom banquette. In
the sunroom, French doors were added to restore
easy access to the front terrace, now covered with
a wood arbor. In the hall, a half-bath was created
from the closets of two bedrooms, with new, larger
closets constructed in their place. The spectacular
new master bath occupies the same space it always
has, only now it sports a space-saving sliding door
made from the original mirrored closet door. A large
master closet was added by taking in space from an
adjoining bedroom, now used as an office by the new
homeowner. New tile in the Jack ’n’ Jill bath complements the refurbished original tub and sink.
Cooper Home
308 La Playa Place
Mary and Mims Cooper purchased this threebedroom Spanish Colonial Revival gem in 2012. The
earliest owners on record were a young married couple,
Eugenia and George (a tile contractor) Shook. Their
names are among 176 original residents listed on a 1926
census that was required when Hollywood petitioned to
become a town.
This home is a beautiful one-story stucco house
with flat tar roof, terra cotta tiles, and detached garage.
Architectural details include a front projecting bay and
parapet, double-hung windows, a stoop porch at the entrance, and an exterior stucco chimney. Inside, the lovely
tiled foyer opens to the spacious living room, from
which a step leads up to the dining room level. Two sets
of French doors open the space to the front terrace.
Under the Coopers’ direction, NeedCo Cabinets
recreated the kitchen and breakfast room for a more
modern lifestyle. Other kitchen upgrades include stainless appliances, herringbone backsplash subway tiles,
marble countertops, French doors, and a media viewing
area. As part of a new master suite, the Coopers extended the back of the house to add a gorgeous master
bath with barrel ceiling, shadow molding, marble floors,
and a courtyard view. Architecturally correct renovations were used to upgrade the residence throughout,
including copper gutters, new windows, a cedar closet,
bathroom fixtures, and more—all while keeping the
basic original structure intact.
At the rear of the home, a private entertainment
and herb planting area was created, doubling the living
space. A brick-capped, stucco courtyard wall was constructed along the back of the lot, visually connecting
the garage to the main house. The Coopers saved original screened doors during the renovation and placed
them along the interior “party” garage walls.
Lary Home
214 Devon Drive
The Lary Home, built in 1927 by the Matthews
family, is a classic example of the Tudor Revival Cottage style, an adaptation of the much larger Englishtype manor homes. Like its neighbor at 216 Devon,
this home has all the features of this style: steep roof,
front gables with vents, multi-pane windows, front
stoop, rounded door, and recessed arched entry with
stone or brick veneer—a cost-saving technique that
made this style popular with middle-class homebuyers in the 1920s.
Current owners Rachel and Barton Lary purchased the house in 2010 from Dan and Kristi
Logan. The Logans, thought to be the third family
to own the home, bought it in 2002 from the Boyd
family and undertook the major renovations. The
home’s square footage is unchanged, but it has all
been refurbished or renovated. An early project was
to reopen the original covered front porch, sandblasting layers of white paint to reveal the original brick.
The kitchen, originally three small rooms, was redone
with an open plan and eating area. The laundry
became a half bath. All doors were stripped to the
original wood, showing off the unusual original brass
doorknobs. Both full baths were gutted and redone,
reusing the original clawfoot tub upstairs. A screened
porch was added to the back of the house.
When the Larys moved into the house in 2010,
they immediately began putting their personal stamp
on the lovely home. Every room was repainted, including an accent wall behind an original living-room
bookcase. The window sashes were painted a darker
color for accent as well. In the kitchen, a built-in banquette was added to the eating area. Off the porch, a
grilling area with steps to the backyard was added.
Larry Home
214 Devon Drive
The Hollywood Garden Club
welcomes you to the
2015 Historic Hollywood Tour of Homes.
Renderings by Ken McBride, Architect
Special Thanks to: Barbara Wheeler
This Tour, first held in the early 1980s, is our club’s bien-
nial fundraiser for neighborhood beautification and to support
Shades Cahaba School, as it has since the early days of Hollywood. In 1924, 26-year-old developer Clyde Nelson set out
to fulfill his vision of a planned community of Spanish-style
homes, fashionable at the time. His Hollywood Land Company
paid $109,800 for land that would become “Birmingham’s
Master Subdivision.” Nelson hired Harvard-trained landscape
architect Rubee J. Pearse to design the 750-lot neighborhood,
laying out roads, green spaces, lot lines, and house placement.
The Garden Club pays to maintain most of the green spaces,
now 12 in number.
Nelson engaged Birmingham architect George P. Turner to
design most original residences, including 60–80 Spanish homes
and many of Tudor design. Committed to highest quality, Nelson sent contractors to Miami to study masonry techniques before the first foundation was dug. Lots sold for $1,800–$3,700,
completed homes for $15,000–$35,000. Although Nelson
eventually allowed lot buyers to build the popular Tudor style,
he still insisted on strict design codes, often fighting buyers who
misrepresented their plans or refused to comply.
Nelson’s promotion of Hollywood was flamboyant.
When the first floor of a new house was built, he brought in
orchestras and opera singers for outdoor lawn parties, inviting
the general public. He lured potential homeowners to the area
with every amenity he could think of: a leather-seated bus for
free runs to Birmingham, the first natural gas pipeline into
Shades Valley, and the Hollywood Country Club (burned 1984),
offering fine dining, dancing, and a large pool and sandy beach,
complete with lounge chairs and umbrellas.
By December 1926, Hollywood had enough residents
(176) to petition the court to become a town. The petition
was granted, and a mayor and five councilmen elected. The
town had one policeman and one garbage man. In 1929, facing
mounting expenses to complete the sewer system and provide
other services, the town merged into the City of Homewood.
91 years later, Hollywood remains a tribute to an era and
to the vision of a man and his dream. In 2002, our Historic
District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places,
significant as the earliest, and one of the most well-executed,
planned communities in the state, as well as for the architectural
style of surviving houses (237 c. 1925–1929, 141 c. 1930–1939).
The Hollywood Garden Club promotes the preservation and
protection of this unique historic neighborhood.
Thank you for attending our fundraiser, which allows us to
continue to maintain and preserve our “little piece of history”
right here in Homewood. Enjoy!
The Hollywood Garden Club
Historic
Hollywood
Doyal Home
216 Devon Drive
Historic
Hollywood
Doyal Home
216 Devon Drive
Date: Sunday, May 3, 2015
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Tickets: $15 in advance;
The Doyal House is a fine example$17
ofata the
historic
door
bungalow thoughtfully expanded to meet the needs of
a modern family. This one-story, 7-room 1928 Tudor
Revival now has 13 rooms, 4½ baths, and lots of storHome
age—all Cooper
on the
original footprint, in proper scale for the
308 La Playa
lot size.
Holly and Jay Doyal have remodeled extensively
since buying the home in 1998. They’ve taken a European approach to designing their home, keeping the
outside structure true to the period in Thompson
which Home
it was built
105 Hollywood Blvd
while choosing chic, minimalist, European
furnishings
and fixtures for the interior, complemented by works of
art from around the world.
The Doyals’
first major project was reconfiguring
Larry Home
214 Devon
Drive to the basement were relocated to
the kitchen.
Stairs
maximize space for new cabinets, and concrete counters
Renderings by Ken McBride, Architect
were installed. A custom-built mahogany front door
Special Thanks to: Barbara Wheeler
with paned windows, designed to resemble the original
round-topped door, lit up the entry. The largest project
Home
came in 2005 when the Doyals enlisted216Doyal
Twin
ConstrucDevon Drive
tion to take the house from one story to two, along with
other main-level interior projects. In this round of renovations, a false ceiling in the living room was removed
to reveal the original 14-foot barrel ceiling. The original
front terrace—converted to an enclosed sunporch in
Ticket Outlets: Harmony Landing / Hunter Cleaners
the 1950s—became
a stunning office space with a modArceneaux Art Gallery / Sweet Peas Garden Center
ern twist.
www.HistoricHollywoodTour.com
The upstairs
features two bedrooms connected by a
bath, a spacious master suite with walk-in closet, and a
bonus room that holds the family’s photography archive
and laundry. (Don’t miss the exclusive view of Vulcan
and the Doyals’ private four-hole putting green as you
ascend the double-wide staircase.) In the basement, a
children’s den occupies the space where an old shuffleboard court was discovered under an old floor during
renovation.
Historic Hollywood Tour of Homes
Date: Sunday, May 3, 2015
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Tickets: $15 in advance;
$17 at the door
Historic Hollywood Tour of Homes
Sunday,
Ticket Outlets: Harmony Landing / Hunter
Cleaners
3, 2015
Arceneaux Art Gallery / Sweet PeasMay
Garden
Center
Cooper Home
1:00–4:00 p.m.
www.HistoricHollywoodTour.com
308 La Playa
Tickets:
$20 in advance,
$25 at the door
Thompson Home
105 Hollywood Blvd
Cooper Home
308 La Playa Place
Larry Home
214 Devon Drive
Renderings by Ken McBride, Architect
Special Thanks to: Barbara Wheeler
Thompson Home
105 Hollywood Blvd
Doyal Home
216 Devon Drive
Historic Hollywood Tour of Homes
Lary Home
Ticket Outlets:
Landing / Hunter Cleaners
214 DevonHarmony
Drive
Arceneaux Art Gallery / Sweet Peas Garden Center
Renderings
by
www.HistoricHollywoodTour.com
Kenneth McBride,
KPS Group
Thanks to:
Barbara Wheeler, LAH;
Infomedia, Inc.
Doyal Home
216 Devon Drive
Sponsored by the Hollywood Garden Club
Ticket Outlets: Online at www.HistoricHollywoodTour.com / Hunter’s Cleaners / Four
Seasons Antiques, Art & Botanicals / Sweet
Peas Garden Shop / Chickadee / Table Matters
/ King’s House Antiques