Simply Living: A Southern California garage boasts history and style

Images by Dale Quinio

Fortunately for Garage Style Magazine, there is no shortage of cool, autocentric spaces to photograph and feature.  But every now and again, we come across one that is truly remarkable, truly resplendent, and even somehow otherworldly.  Such is the garage of Mr. Nelson.

Mr. Nelson grew up in the television industry, the child of parents and grandparents who helped establish the industry in Los Angeles, and kept the wheels greased and rolling for a few decades before passing the torch on to younger generations.  Having roots in the Los Angeles area like these are gold, but in speaking with Mr. Nelson, you wouldn’t know he grew up Hollywood.  He works in the industry, but he doesn’t let it go to his head, he knows he’s a regular Joe and likes it that way.

“I never understood arrogance or ego,” said Mr. Nelson.  “We all have a shade of each, I guess, but losing your sense of person to your career is silly.  Working with my hands, I think, has kept me well grounded.”

And work with his hands does he ever.  Mr. Nelson’s passion is anything requiring a touch of this, an added detail, a sense of attention to achieve as close to perfection as humanly possible.  As such he especially enjoys items of remarkable quality and engineering over style and pizzazz.  One of his weak spots is ancient bicycles that he buys and restores when he can.  He likes vintage Schwinns, but his real interests lay in truly prehistoric bikes from centuries ago that are as rare as hens teeth, and built with a degree of robustness not normally seen this side of a tank.  His home and garage are also testament to his preference for style and quality and minimalism.

Originally built in the early part of the last century, the garage has seen its share of history.  It’s served as storage for the school district and a brewery, it’s been a factory, and much more.  It remembers when the road outside the door was dirt, the sidewalk was part of the road, horse and buggy were the preferred mode of transport, and the closest house was about a quarter-mile away.  By the time Mr. Nelson acquired the property, homes and apartments had grown around it, schools had been built across the street, a busy and active neighborhood filled the area with a working class demographic.  And that was just fine with him.

“Living in this neighborhood has been good,” he said. “The neighbors keep to themselves, and watch out for one another simultaneously.  I keep to myself, and don’t draw a lot of attention to myself or my things, and this neighborhood has enough distractions that it’s easy to be under the radar.”

When he acquired the property, both the garage and home were in need of serious renovation.  But, like any good garagista, he fixed up the garage first, living in his vintage VW Bus while performing the work.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said.  “But it was a lot of work.  I was clear on everything needing doing, and wasn’t really worried about it, I knew I could do it, or knew I knew someone who could do it.  We moved walls, widened doorways, cleaned up ceiling beams, cleaned up the concrete, and a lot more.  It was a huge project, but fortunately, the house and garage were such simply built buildings, there were very few curve balls.”

Mr. Nelson did most of the work himself.  The open beam ceiling was a labor of love, literally climbing ladders, using scaffolds, and laying on his back to scrape over a century of muck to expose the actual wood.  In the end though, the ceiling is a major attention getter, and has proven well worth all the effort.  Adding to an otherwise church-like look to the space, Mr. Nelson acquired 100-year old circular chandeliers of wrought iron from a retiring bank in Lompoc, California, each weighing the substantial side of 400 pounds.  One by one, he loaded a chandelier carefully onto the roof of his 1979 Mercedes-Benz 300TD station wagon and brought them home to Los Angeles, refinished them, and hung them up on the beams.

“It’s funny how when these chandeliers came home all of my friends vanished,” he chuckled.  “Getting them up to the ceiling was going to be a challenge without people, but I got to thinking, ‘No, I can do this.’”

And do this he did.  He used the beam as a fulcrum, tying a tow strap to the chandelier, over the beam to the front bumper of his 1946 Chrysler Town & Country.  When each end was tied securely in place, he backed up the Chrysler and the chandelier just eased up into the air.  When it was where he wanted it, he set the brake, climbed the ladder and set up the chains and wiring.  Easing off the brake, the strap lowered the chandelier until the chains took over supporting the massive iron contraption, and that was it.  Untie the strap, job done.

“It actually took more time than effort,” he said.  “The car and straps did most of the work, and thankfully they did it well.  I just secured the chain, set up the wiring, and that was it.  It was time consuming, but the overall result is really nice.”

The walls received new glass block windows, a nice, uniform coating of plaster, and lost construction method look was achieved.  No drywall here – old school.  The concrete floors were ground to create a more uniform color and level surface, and massive wooden doors that would do any monastery proud were built, along with all the hardware to hang them and secure them.  Mr. Nelson pretty much made everything himself.

“Really, there weren’t a lot of new items bought to build this place,” he said. “I recycled a lot of pieces and elements, like the wood and the chandeliers.  If I couldn’t find it, I made it, or someone made it for me.”

In the end, he’d created a garage that had a split personality – a showroom on one side of the “L” shaped building, a working space on the other.  At last, he had a place to bring his very respectable fleet of Porsches, VWs, Chryslers, and ancient bicycles to display and enjoy with friends.

“All of the cars have been with me for a long time,” he said. “My Mom and Dad brought me home from the hospital in the white 356 Cabriolet.”

Interestingly, the work area is more intensely decorated with eye candy.  Micro displays for little knickknacks are here and there, art adorns the walls more freely, and a unique juxtaposition has been achieved of working space, museum, and tiki-style living room.  Within this section, he has a couple of project vehicles, a seriously original and mint 1946 Plymouth, and lots and lots of parts and pieces upon steel shelving for what seems like anything imaginable.  It’s in this room that you can see Mr. Nelson puts his hands to work.  His tools, benches, and so on are kept here.  Ancient bicycles that he’s partial to are restored here, many even adorn the walls, and slowly he finds bits and pieces to bring together all of his other projects.

“I have a lot of interests,” he said.

Outside, between the house and garage, if it’s switched on, a ceramic waterfall on the garage wall lends a calming sound.  It can come in handy, especially during a particularly challenging project, but it’s also great to set up a little bistro table set and have a nice lunch in the shade with the water clattering away.  Within Mr. Nelson’s compound, it’s easy to forget you’re smack in the middle of a bustling neighborhood, smack in the middle of Los Angeles.

The little house also received the Mr. Nelson treatment, and it’s long since replaced the VW.  The exterior walls of the garage and the house match one another; inside, the home is very similar to the showroom – charmingly restrained of décor and clutter, and refreshingly simplistic.  The property is ensconced by tall walls with overgrown shrubs, and a major tree.  He always discourages attention, and from the street, the walls and foliage do well at playing down the gems within.  To a passerby it likely still looks like a little factory with a courtyard behind the walls.  Some of the greatest illusions have come from Hollywood, haven’t they?