The classified ad sounded too good to be true: "Spanish-style fixer-upper. Originally owned by Walt Disney." Kevin Engle, who works in feature animation, was intrigued. The asking price—$200,000—was a bargain in Los Feliz, an elegant, long-established neighborhood in the hills over Hollywood.

Kevin looked at the house—a 1,100-square-foot cottage on a corner lot. The owner had died, and the house had been vacant for six months. Vines were growing over the windows. A discarded mattress and an abandoned Christmas tree littered the yard. An aluminum awning that had seen happier days greeted him at the side door. Several cracks indicated foundation problems that needed to be solved.

There were hints of charm—diamond-shaped windowpanes and arched doorways gave the house a Tudor flavor—but the interior was a nightmare. Huge white ceramic tiles covered the living-room walls. The kitchen consisted of three tiny rooms, with sagging cupboards, stingy counter space, and clashing patterns of wallpaper, linoleum, and tile. The bathroom had tired fixtures, cracked tiles, and a wedged-in shower stall. And the real-estate agent wasn't sure that it really had been the Disney home.

Although he had never owned a house, Kevin was undeterred: He believed he could rescue the little house by reinforcing the foundation and giving it a simple cosmetic makeover. He'd strip the dated wallpaper, remove the objectionable carpets, and repaint. He bought the place— "as is" —for $150,000 and secured bank approval for a $25,000 remodeling loan.

The new homeowner hurried down to the Los Angeles Hall of Records to research his purchase. The house on Lyric Avenue had indeed been owned by Walt and Lillian Disney, who lived there from 1927 to 1933. Next door was an identical home once owned by Walt's brother, Roy, and Roy's wife, Edna. And to cap it off, it's said that Mickey Mouse was born in Walt's garage. In Walt Disney: An American Original, Bob Thomas writes that the top-secret mouse project took shape away from the Walt Disney Studio, due to the impending departure of animators to a rival company. Disney's Mickey Mouse came to life in "a makeshift workshop in his garage on Lyric Avenue" in the spring of 1928. Animator Ub Iwerks drew Mickey's first cartoon, Plane Crazy, behind a locked door at the studio; Lillian and Edna inked and painted the cartoon in Lillian and Walt's tuck-under garage.

But history only goes so far. Kevin's vision turned dark when he began to confront structural problems. He had known that the foundation needed to be shored up, but the house had other problems. The plaster was badly cracked, and when Kevin started pulling the objectionable white tiles off the living-room wall, the plaster came off, too. That's when he discovered that the walls had no insulation and that the plumbing and electrical needed to be replaced. (A new sewer line and a heating and air-conditioning system also loomed in his future.)

"I freaked out when I took off one tile and mortar and could see right down to the wood slats," he says. He started to question whether just repairing the walls would be enough.

"It was a big step to consider demolition," says designer/builder Robert Young, Renovation Style's project editor. The solution, cheaper in the long run, was to take every wall down to the studs, making it simpler to add wiring, plumbing, and insulation. "Although it seemed drastic, it made remodeling much easier," Young says.

There was no construction budget, so Kevin did the demolition himself, even though he had never done any renovation beyond painting an apartment. He spent four months ripping out plaster—mornings, lunch hours, and every night and weekend.

"I'd load up big empty banana boxes with about 125 pounds of debris, tape them shut, and then stack them outside," he recalls. He filled the patio three times with neatly stacked boxes containing his old walls and ceilings.

With the interior stripped to its shell, floor-plan revisions were possible. The kitchen was enlarged by eliminating walls to the adjacent laundry and the breakfast nook, and a doorway to the dining room was relocated to create space for cabinets around the stove. A stacked washer/dryer was tucked inside a closet at one end of the former laundry room, a location that took advantage of the water, gas, and electrical hookups already in place.

The old mechanical systems were replaced while the walls were open—tasks that would have cost twice as much after the walls were closed in. A high-efficiency, ultra-quiet furnace and an air conditioner, air cleaner, and humidifier were installed. Plumbing and electrical systems were replaced, too.

Although Kevin wanted to preserve the period style, not every original feature could be saved.

"We never intended to do a total restoration," says Young, "but rather a sympathetic renovation that made sense." He helped Kevin evaluate the home's features one by one. The old door hardware, for example, was sturdier and heavier than new hinges and knobs in Kevin's price range. The pieces were replated in an antique bronze finish and reused. In the bathroom, the new pedestal sink is a larger first cousin to the original wall-hung sink. In the living room, a small stained-glass window with a Spanish-style crest stayed, but the fake fireplace—with an electric log—was replaced by a direct-vent gas fireplace with a new surround and tiles that are true to the spirit of the house. Badly marred wood floors were refinished and revived with a dark stain that set off the warm wall tones. Thin moldings around windows were beefed up with medium-density fiberboard, which is easy to work with and looks like wood when painted. The new drywall was coated with plaster for the look of old-fashioned, hand-plastered walls.

"Sometimes you have to create an architectural statement that looks like it was part of the original," Young says. In an inspired bit of recycling, the glazed-tile centerpiece from the old fireplace surround was rescued, and its design was duplicated in the new stained-glass window above the tub, a treatment that lets in light while preserving privacy. Each room was given a focal point: The fireplace in the living room, the sawtooth-tile border in the bathroom, and the nostalgic gas range in the kitchen immediately created character for each space.

"My biggest problem was that my hands were often tied due to my limited budget," says Kevin. "I couldn't do everything right away."

After giving up his apartment to save money and living with friends for 3 1/2 months, he moved into his house, although work was far from complete: His bedroom was a sleeper sofa. His makeshift kitchen—a tiny refrigerator, a blender, and a microwave—was set up in the bathroom.

With mechanical systems installed and structural changes implemented, it was time, finally, to proceed with surfaces, colors, and the decor. Because the house is small, design themes, colors, and materials are repeated to unify rooms. The blue-green, green, black, and yellow of the original fireplace tile inspired the palette used throughout the interior. But the colors vary subtly from room to room. In the bathroom, strong green, black, and yellow tiles contrast with the white fixtures and chrome faucets. The kitchen has warmer, more yellowed walls and dark green solid-surface countertops. The bedroom and den have darker, textured walls and lighter floors.

A diamond motif, borrowed from the windows, is repeated throughout the house. In the kitchen, beadboard was installed vertically on the walls and across the ceiling, then arranged in triangles as a border where walls and ceiling meet. The floor is a composition of blue-green, black, and honey-colored square linoleum tiles set at an angle. In the bedrooms, large squares of grass cloth set on point were applied to the walls for a subtle diamond motif.

While the house has a definite '30s feel, it's no museum. There is a slight sense of the exotic in some of the furnishings, the grass-cloth wall coverings, and the wood blinds—and the distinctive decorative stenciling is reminiscent of Moorish designs. Chenille and natty fabrics provide inviting textures.

Outside, the nondescript thin composition roof wasn't worth keeping. New hunter green shake shingles immediately perked up the exterior. Their random pattern gives the roof a rich, three-dimensional look, adding cottage charm. Colored stucco was troweled onto the house to match the original exterior. A handsome new wooden garage door, similar to one shown in an old photo of the house, completed the exterior makeover. A final touch was bringing the neglected side yard to life by landscaping to create an outdoor living room.

Two years after his purchase, and after spending three times as much as he had anticipated, Kevin is enormously pleased with the outcome—and he's not the only one. "Everyone was so happy that I was redoing the house," he said. "Neighbors would stop me whenever I walked out of the house to tell me."

Clearly, the little house on Lyric Avenue is now Kevin Engle's home, not the Disney dwelling or a simple fixer-upper. Hard work and magic animated the dwelling and brought it to life—the same formula that created cartoon history at the very same address.

Credits

Text: Allison Engel

Photography: Colleen Duffley

Design and Production: Robert Young