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Silver Lake is a hillside neighborhood east of Hollywood, known for mid-century modern residential architecture, Silver Lake Reservoir, and a creative-class identity that has shaped LA's cultural profile for decades.
A residential and commercial neighborhood in central Los Angeles, covering 2.75 square miles around the reservoir that gives it its name. Glendale Boulevard is the main north-south route and carries much of the commercial frontage. It borders Los Feliz to the north and Echo Park to the south, and the hillside streets around the water are a different market from the flatter blocks east and south of it.
A City of Los Angeles neighborhood, not a separate city — LA City rules, LA City taxes, LA City enforcement, and Los Angeles rent stabilization on any building whose certificate of occupancy predates 1 October 1978. The 2010 census counted 37,019 residents at roughly 11,990 per square mile, with a median household income of $74,587 and 56.8% of adults holding higher degrees against a Los Angeles average of 38.5%. That education figure is the one to notice: it is a renter base with earning power, in a neighborhood of small older buildings.
Approximately 35,000 residents with a distinctive demographic mix — a creative-class population long associated with LA's music, design, and film-adjacent industries, alongside a substantial Latino community that predates the neighborhood's 1990s-2010s gentrification cycle.
Small buildings, hillside lots, and a tenant base with unusual earning power for the size of the units. The properties in this record run in the single digits and low teens, and the per-door figures on the closings page sit above the Valley submarkets published here and below the Westside. Hillside position is a real underwriting variable in this submarket in a way it is not in most: parking, access, grading and view all vary block by block, and two buildings with identical unit counts a few streets apart can be quite different assets.
Silver Lake holds one of the densest concentrations of modernist residential architecture in the United States. Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, Gregory Ain, Craig Ellwood, Raphael Soriano and Walter Dorwin Teague all built here. The apartment stock is a different story — small pre-war and early post-war walk-ups and courts on the hillsides and along the corridors, most of it comfortably inside the 1 October 1978 line that governs rent stabilization. The architectural reputation is nonetheless a real commercial asset for an owner, because it is a substantial part of why tenants with choices choose this neighborhood.
| Building | Year | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Lake Reservoir | 1907 | Built by the Los Angeles Water Department and named for Water Commissioner Herman Silver. A Historic-Cultural Monument since 1989, and the feature the whole neighborhood is organized around. |
| Ivanhoe Reservoir | 1906 | The upper reservoir, a year older than its neighbor, and also a Historic-Cultural Monument since 1989. |
No Historic Preservation Overlay Zone covers the neighborhood as a whole, but individual designation is common here and easy to miss. Both reservoirs have been Historic-Cultural Monuments since 1989, and the neighborhood's concentration of significant modernist work means a given house or small building may carry its own status. Designation is parcel-specific and a seller does not always know, so confirm any address against the city's own records before the diligence conversation rather than after it.
Independent creative industries — design, digital, music, film adjacency — concentrated in home-based and small-office workplaces. Sunset Junction and Silver Lake Boulevard are the major commercial corridors. Not a major employment hub, but a dense residential submarket for workers at nearby employers.
Metro Bus service along Sunset and Glendale Boulevards. No rail station within the neighborhood. Primary vehicular access via Glendale Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, and the 2 and 5 Freeways on the periphery.
No rail station lies inside the neighborhood today, though the Pacific Electric Glendale Line once ran through it over the Fletcher Drive Viaduct, built in 1904, rebuilt in steel in 1928 and demolished in 1959. The nearest subway is the Metro B Line at Vermont/Sunset on the Los Feliz side. In practice the draw here is walkability within the neighborhood itself — the reservoir loop, Sunset Junction and the Glendale Boulevard corridor — rather than a commute.
LAUSD schools. The Micheltorena Street Elementary area is a particularly sought-after catchment. Los Angeles City College is accessible east of the neighborhood.
LAUSD schools serving the area include Thomas Starr King Middle School for grades 6 to 8, and Ivanhoe, Micheltorena Street, Clifford Street and Allesandro elementary schools, plus Bellevue Primary for kindergarten and grade 1.
Silver Lake Reservoir, Sunset Junction, Music Box Steps (from the 1932 Laurel and Hardy film), Neutra VDL Research House (Richard Neutra), John Sowden House.
Silver Lake Reservoir and Dog Park (the neighborhood's defining public space), Bellevue Recreation Center, the walking/running path around the reservoir, and nearby Elysian Park (one of LA's largest urban parks).
| Park | What is there |
|---|---|
| Silver Lake Recreation Center | Includes a 2.25-mile walking path around the reservoir, dog parks and the Silver Lake Meadow — the neighborhood's central shared amenity and a genuine rental draw. |
Sunset Junction (Sunset Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard meeting) is the neighborhood's commercial heart. Silver Lake Boulevard hosts independent restaurants and cafes. The neighborhood has played a foundational role in LA's indie-music and creative-industries economy for decades.
| Institution | Since | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Lake Reservoir Complex | 1907 | Publicly owned water infrastructure at the center of the neighborhood. It cannot be developed, which permanently caps supply in the most desirable part of the submarket and is a large part of why values hold here. |
| Silver Lake Branch Library | At 2411 Glendale Boulevard. |
Silver Lake Farmers Market (seasonal). Silver Lake Jubilee (historical community festival). The Music Box Steps Day (commemorating the 1932 Laurel and Hardy film shot on location).
Silver Lake has been a center of modernist architectural innovation since the 1930s — Richard Neutra built both his own residence (the VDL Research House) and numerous residential commissions here, alongside work by Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, and other mid-century modernist practitioners.
Represented by the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, certified in February 2003 with a 21-member board, and split across two Los Angeles City Council districts.
Developed in the 1910s-1930s; named for Herman Silver, who led the project to build the reservoir. The 1930s-50s saw concentrated modernist architecture by Neutra, Lautner, Schindler, and others. The 2000s-2010s gentrification reshaped commercial corridors and residential pricing.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1887 | Byram & Poindexter develop the area under the name Ivanhoe, which survives in the name of the upper reservoir and the elementary school. |
| 1906 | The Ivanhoe Reservoir is built, followed in 1907 by the Silver Lake Reservoir — named for Herman Silver, a Water Commissioner, rather than for the color of the water. |
| 1909 | William Selig establishes an early film studio in Edendale; Mack Sennett opens a studio nearby in 1912, two decades before he founded the one that named Studio City. |
| 1920s | Moreno Highlands is developed through the 1930s by Daisy Canfield, wife of the actor Antonio Moreno. |
| 1949 | The Chinese-American architect Eugene Kinn Choy wins approval to build in the neighborhood despite the racial covenants then in force. |
| 1967 | The police raid on the Black Cat Tavern takes place, two years before Stonewall, and is followed by one of the earliest organized LGBT rights demonstrations in the United States. |
| 1989 | Both the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs are designated Historic-Cultural Monuments. |
| 2003 | The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council is certified in February, with a 21-member board. |
These are the 26 Los Angeles submarkets where the group has closed the most buildings, on our own record rather than a published index. The spread is the reason a citywide per-unit figure is close to useless for pricing a specific building.
| Submarket | Buildings | Units | Median per unit | Size range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hollywood | 24 | 562 | $282,589 | 3–75 |
| Koreatown | 21 | 465 | $158,958 | 4–96 |
| West Hollywood | 21 | 206 | $354,286 | 2–22 |
| Sherman Oaks | 17 | 349 | $237,708 | 6–47 |
| Palms | 13 | 337 | $296,875 | 7–118 |
| Glendale | 12 | 224 | $258,854 | 5–92 |
| Van Nuys | 12 | 380 | $171,801 | 4–68 |
| North Hollywood | 11 | 191 | $271,429 | 5–46 |
| Santa Monica | 8 | 100 | $616,667 | 3–27 |
| Reseda | 8 | 506 | $156,639 | 10–138 |
| West Los Angeles | 6 | 62 | $575,000 | 7–16 |
| Hancock Park | 6 | 129 | $230,519 | 7–35 |
| Los Feliz | 5 | 123 | $225,000 | 6–48 |
| Panorama City | 5 | 178 | $135,849 | 22–53 |
| Fairfax | 5 | 31 | $425,000 | 3–13 |
| Burbank | 4 | 47 | $298,917 | 10–15 |
| Toluca Lake | 4 | 84 | $337,625 | 5–40 |
| Mid-City | 4 | 26 | $256,458 | 6–8 |
| Valley Village | 4 | 81 | $263,472 | 9–34 |
| Pacoima | 4 | 282 | $153,691 | 52–100 |
| Silverlake | 3 | 38 | $243,333 | 10–16 |
| Venice | 3 | 30 | $425,000 | 3–17 |
| Mar Vista | 3 | 21 | $354,167 | 5–10 |
| Studio City | 3 | 51 | $322,857 | 5–39 |
| Tarzana | 3 | 266 | $229,661 | 30–118 |
| Winnetka | 3 | 90 | $250,000 | 12–52 |
The place facts on this page — founding dates, acreages, opening years, boundaries — were checked against these sources on 2026-09-09. The closing figures are computed from the group’s own transaction archive. Where two sources disagreed on a number, the claim is stated only to the level both support.
A residential and commercial neighborhood in central Los Angeles, covering 2.75 square miles around the reservoir that gives it its name. Glendale Boulevard is the main north-south route and carries much of the commercial frontage. It borders Los Feliz to the north and Echo Park to the south, and the hillside streets around the water are a different market from the flatter blocks east and south of it.
A City of Los Angeles neighborhood, not a separate city — LA City rules, LA City taxes, LA City enforcement, and Los Angeles rent stabilization on any building whose certificate of occupancy predates 1 October 1978. The 2010 census counted 37,019 residents at roughly 11,990 per square mile, with a median household income of $74,587 and 56.8% of adults holding higher degrees against a Los Angeles average of 38.5%.
Silver Lake holds one of the densest concentrations of modernist residential architecture in the United States. Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, Gregory Ain, Craig Ellwood, Raphael Soriano and Walter Dorwin Teague all built here. The apartment stock is a different story — small pre-war and early post-war walk-ups and courts on the hillsides and along the corridors, most of it comfortably inside the 1 October 1978 line that governs rent stabilization.
No Historic Preservation Overlay Zone covers the neighborhood as a whole, but individual designation is common here and easy to miss. Both reservoirs have been Historic-Cultural Monuments since 1989, and the neighborhood's concentration of significant modernist work means a given house or small building may carry its own status.
Silver Lake is the LA submarket with the widest structural in-place-to-market rent gap for long-tenured buildings. Stock cannot expand. Tenure is long. The pricing story is about scarcity and the architectural character of specific buildings, not about cap-rate mechanics.
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