A. Quincy Jones Tour Oct. 1 - Page 2

The development began in the late 1940s as the Mutual Housing Association, a utopian collective founded initially by studio musicians. Its dues would pay for collectively owned schools, markets, buses, and medical services. It did not succeed for long, but 160 homes were built out of 500 planned for the community.

Unfortunately, more than 60 of the homes perished in the Bel Air fire of 1961, and many others have since been demolished or insensitively remodeled. Only 33 of the Jones-designed homes remain.

"We try to have an expert at each of our homes on the tour," said Hamisch, including members of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the University of Southern California School of Architecture (where Jones was a professor and then dean), and two architect/homeowners, Cory Buckner and Bruce Norelius. "All of them that were chosen for the tour this year are original homes that have been redone."

One of the tour homes is the Gelb House (1949). Norelius said last week that he and his partner wanted to become the second owners of that house as soon as they saw it at an open house in 2010 after longtime Hollywood grocers and original owners Morris and Lydia Gelb died.

"We just immediately loved this house, said, 'We have to have this!'" said the architect of his three-bedroom, 1,200-square-foot home. "It's a very sweet modernist home…It was definitely tired, but it hadn't been screwed up."

"Our rules were, we weren't going to move any walls, we weren't going to move any windows. We wanted to respect its integrity," Norelius said of their remodel, which included a new kitchen, cabinetry, and tiny, renovated baths. "They've been kind of fun to redo because we treat them as little boat bathrooms."

They tore up carpeting to find "ugly beige vinyl tile" and ultimately decided to grind and refinish the bare concrete for flooring, with Norelius adding, "We sort of liked the imperfect finish."

Other houses on the five-home tour include the Hamma House (1951), the Knauer House (1954), and at least two Los Angeles Cultural Historic Monuments, including Buckner's house, the original Mutual Housing Association office (1947).

"They're a great organization, and we wanted to support it," Norelius said of Venice Family Clinic, which has hosted home tours for more than 30 years and uses the proceeds to help provide services to 24,000 homeless, in-need, and low-income residents.

Check-in for the Crestwood Hills Architectural Tour begins at 10 a.m., and the shuttles depart at 10:30. To purchase tickets and receive more information, click here.