We're planning to rent an apartment in the LA area for two weeks around Labor Day (just two of us). We've always rented before in West Hollywood, but not having much luck finding anything this time. We want to keep well under $200 a night, hopefully more in the $1000 a week range.

Meanwhile I found this charming little two story "cottage" in Westwood/Century City area. It is on Fox Hills Drive, just north of Olympic -- sort of directly behind the Century City shopping complex a couple of blocks.
We are walkers. We've often walked to Century City from Summerfield Suites near La Cienega and Santa Monica, so we certainly can walk. How long to walk up into Beverly Hills from there -- do we walk along Olympic to do so?
Of course I realize it may be ungodly hot the end of August, so that's a consideration, too.

Other than walking up to Century City, are there coffee shops or other things in the immediate area for morning breakfast, etc.? They say it is directly across from a Ralph's at Olympic and Fox Hills.

I'm also concerned about street parking (permit provided) in that area. Will we find a place at night nearby?

This place looks so charming and so "us", but not sure if that's clouding my thinking on how appropriate it would be for our stay. I'm not really into hopping into a car everytime I want to go everywhere (although I know that's the LA thing).

Here's the link. I also have a link to 46 more pictures if anyone is really interested.
http://www.vrbo.com/65394

Comments?

That area's a little west of "downtown" Century City, and I'm guessing it would be a two-mile schlepp to Beverly Hills (say, the corner of Wilshire and Beverly). I can picture that Ralphs (I lived near there for a year or so during grad school), but can't recall if there's a coffeehouse or anything right there. I know you can head east a little on Olympic and it gets more commercial.

If it weren't for the construction on Santa Monica Blvd., I'd say head to Beverly Hills that way. But I have to confess something here: I haven't driven on Santa Monica Blvd. farther east from the ocean than Lincoln Blvd in Santa Monica for well over a year. I have no idea what state the construction project is in.

The place sounds nice, that part of Westwood is a fairly upscale part of the Westside, and since you know your way around (and I assume you'll have a car too) this could be a great headquarters. Parking shouldn't be a problem if it's permit-only in the evenings. You should probably e-mail to ask.

Thanks. The agent told me that parking is absolutely no problem. But I was told that about another place I looked at just a block off Sunset and Crescent. Are you kidding me? We've tried parking in that area and drove for blocks and blocks looking. The people avoiding pay parking at the movies and all the clubs in that area take all the spaces for miles!

But I would suspect it would be far less an issue at this place.

By the way, I entered the corner of Rodeo and Wilshire in Mapquest and got 1.91 miles -- you're really good, Rob! Your corner is one more block so right on the money.

Even given it's just south of Century City Mall, the back streets of that part of Westwood (who knew it was Westwood?!) are thoroughly residential. The area around Sunset and Crescent would attract a lot more visitors, obviously. Century City itself is pretty quiet in the evening, so I wouldn't worry about masses of drunk club kids.

I figured out how to copy the link to all the pictures of this place. Actually I want to move in. This seems too good to be true. Too bad it will probably be too hot to take advantage of the garden area.

I do recall exiting out of the Century City shopping complex in the wrong lane and having to drive down that way. It really seemed like a nice neighborhood. Looks like we'd have a few steps to climb.

http://tinyurl.com/zmt87

That is a great price for that place. I live about 6 blocks from there and the area is great. By then, the Santa Monica Blvd. Transit Parkway Project will be completed, and one of the suggestions I had for Fox Hills Drive (at the north end at Santa Monica Blvd.) will be implemented.

From the pictures, it looks like it's on the west side of the street, which is better than the east side, since the back of the east side abuts Century Park West, a street that fills with commuter traffic during the weekday evenings -- the back yards of those homes are adjacent to CPW.

On parking: they should have either a driveway or a garage for you to park your car. Ask for parking permits, because that street does have permit parking (Permit District 1 -- it was the first area in Los Angeles to get permit parking!). The owners should have two guest permits or if they don't, can get them for you.

Even though it will be warm, it will not be too warm to partake of the back yard.

Other than Century City for breakfast, or walking across the street to the Ralphs for fresh baked goods, you will be within walking distance (since you say you like to walk) -- about a mile -- from John O'Groats on Pico Blvd., just west of the Rancho Park Golf Course. It's about 3/4 of a mile to the western tip of Beverly Hills.

If you want me to ask the President of the area's homeowner association more about this particular house, let me know.

Actually I haven't gotten a price confirmation for our two weeks yet. They quote $1000 to $1250 per week. I'd love it to be the lower of those since we're doing too weeks, but I won't hold my breath either way.

I get the impression that this is a sort of guest cottage to another house and people live in that one. Yes, they already said they would provide us with a residential parking permit.

Gee, if you want to check it out one day, I'd really appreciate it.

geez. Yes, I know it should have been "two" not "too" weeks.

Patrick - This looks like a great place! We have friends who live quite near this area and it is well worth the price. Go for it!

Oh, I didn't know that was you -- welcome back! I just looked at the number of the "cottage" and it is on the east side of the street, not the west. I'll go by and confirm, but it appears to be the last house on the street closest to Olympic, but not at the corner. Had this been 6 months ago, I would have said you'll hate it, because next door a former low rise commercial building had been razed, and a new low rise (i.e. two stories) has been constructed next door. Compulaw or Compunet, something like that. The good news is -- construction is over and the tenants have moved in! The property you're looking at is a duplex, so I assume (you should ask) that the back yard would be shared. Its proximity to Olympic is shielded by the office building (so the noise won't be bad), the better news is it's located away from the high rise buildings and directly across from the back from a low rise condo complex called "Century Woods", very high rent and highly landscaped, meaning private.

I've been emailing with the owner. He's a real estate attorney in re-development working downtown and his wife works at UCLA Medical Center. Their 18 month old daughter is in daycare. They live in the main part of the property and rent out this "cottage". So we have the place to ourselves during the day. He seems very nice. In fact he seems a little hesitant to rent for only the two weeks as last summer they had two tenants, one for two months and one for six weeks, but I think he's going to let us go ahead and take it for the two weeks over Labor Day. The price comes out to about $175 a day. Yikes, but that compares to a hotel at about $135 a night plus the taxes and parking. I think we're going to go ahead and do it. He mentioned that normally there are two empty spaces on the street right in front of their house and two more across the street, so parking should never be a problem.

Did you look at the big slideshow of pics I linked above? I just love the feel of this place. Do you think there will be enough room in that big side by side for a carton of orange juice and my skim milk -- the sum total of our usual "kitchen" use?

By the way, their housekeeper gives us one day a week to clean, change the beds and even do our personal laundry. Never had that before in an apartment rental!

Thanks for looking at it for me, Surfergirl.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the owner said Jason Biggs used to live there (owned it?) and he remodeled the bathroom upstairs. I hope he didn't leave any pies in the kitchen!

I did check out the photos and will take a look at it this weekend (i.e. tomorrow). Yes, Jason did live on that street and we still have quite a few actors living in the area, mostly of the mid-range (i.e. you've seen them in films, but don't know there names) category. My neighbor across the street is an actress; you've probably seen her on the latest t-mobile commercials (the screaming mother), but also appears almost weekly in various prime time t.v. dramas. You'll enjoy the new, revamped Century City, although we've been going back to Westwood Village for first run movies even with the new CC movie complex, since I'm getting sick of crowds and if I have to pay $3.00 to park after 3 hours, I'd rather get the Village atmosphere. The ABC entertainment complex should almost be finished, as should (and I say this with a yeah, right) the Santa Monica Blvd. project, which has been a nightmare for the community.

Drove past there on my way back from Gelsons in Century City. It looked nice. There are 20 brick stairs up the front to the enclosed front garden. The front yard is enclosed with a wood fence with a trellis above it. Good privacy. it looks like the bulk of the garden is in the front rather than the back, but we do have some homes like that. The only difficulty I see with the set up is I would hate to drag weekly groceries or heavy suitcases up those stairs! Otherwise, it has that Silverlake home feel to the place (our artsy, bohemian area that has since become high rent gentrified, not to use a cultural cliche), and I am partial to brick walkways.