Kitchen Remodeling in Hollywood Hills, CA

A Hollywood Hills kitchen is never only a kitchen. The 1920s–30s Spanish and Mediterranean houses in Whitley Heights, Outpost Estates and Beachwood Canyon have small closed kitchens a flight below the view; the 1950s–60s post-and-beam and mid-century houses on the ridges have the kitchen in the right place but behind a wall of cabinets that blocks it. The project is to open the kitchen to the room with the view, on a beam engineered for a house that sits on stepped footings, and to rebuild the systems behind it: galvanized lines, a 100-amp panel and a service drop that LADWP may have to re-run up the slope.

Two jobs hide inside every Hollywood Hills kitchen remodel. The first is the finishes: cabinetry, stone or quartz counters, tile, lighting and appliances. The second is the house underneath. The electrical here is typically 100-amp panels in most prewar and mid-century houses; a 200-amp LADWP upgrade is part of most full kitchens, and on a canyon lot the service drop itself is often the hard part. The plumbing is typically galvanized supply lines in the prewar houses, raised foundations and stepped footings on the slopes, and drains that run downhill to a lateral in the street below, and the galvanized lines are replaced with copper or PEX while the walls are open. Opening the wall to the next room means an engineered beam and a structural permit, and the new lighting has to meet Title 24.

Our office is in Valley Glen, about 20–25 minutes away, and the project lead who does your estimate runs the build. On the hillside streets we plan the staging, the parking and the carry-in before demolition and price them into the fixed proposal. Most Hollywood Hills families stay in the home for the 5–8 weeks on site, with a temporary kitchen set up and the dust contained to the work area.

The Hollywood Hills run along the south face of the Santa Monica Mountains from Laurel Canyon and Nichols Canyon on the west through Outpost Estates and Whitley Heights to the Cahuenga Pass, Lake Hollywood, Beachwood Canyon and Hollywoodland on the east, with Mulholland Drive along the ridge and the Hollywood Sign above it. Our office is in Valley Glen, about nine miles away over Laurel Canyon or the 101, a 20–25 minute drive; permits run through LADBS, with plan check at the Metro Development Services Center downtown, and nearly every parcel is under the Baseline Hillside Ordinance.

The site is the other half of the price. Canyon streets leave no room for a dumpster, slabs and cabinets are carried in by hand or craned from the street, and the neighbors get a parking and delivery plan before demolition; we price that access into the fixed proposal so it never becomes a change order. A kitchen that keeps the exterior needs no hillside review, but a new window or an opening visible from Mulholland Drive can, and in the Whitley Heights HPOZ any exterior change goes through the preservation board. We check the overlays on ZIMAS before design.

Hollywood Hills is City of Los Angeles, so the kitchen is permitted through LADBS (City of Los Angeles) at the Metro Development Services Center. The electrical and plumbing permits are pulled before demolition, inspections are scheduled around the framing and rough-in stages, and the permit is closed at final so the work shows as permitted when you sell.