Once known as the Hotel Somerville, the Dunbar Hotel was built in 1928 for the first West Coast convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In Jim Crow-era Los Angeles, the building provided first-class accommodations for African-Americans traveling the states, including jazz greats like Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.

Now known as the Dunbar Village, the building has been meticulously restored as an 83-unit affordable housing community for seniors. London Carter moved in as soon as it opened.

A disabled veteran retired from the medical field, Carter was looking for a place to live and found a spot at the Dunbar. His window overlooks the Dunbar sign.  

“You get people from all over the world want to come and take pictures of the sign and it happen to be right outside of my apartment building on the fifth floor," said Carter. “So I’m really excited about living here at the Dunbar. It’s part of history. It’s part of Los Angeles history.”

Carter is lucky. He fits right in, but none of this would have been possible without architect Dan Withee. He worked with Thomas Safran & Associates to restore the building to its original glory.

“One of the things I remember really well was there was there was a roof right here at nine feet completely covering this atrium, completely covering this lobby,” said Withee.

“There was no light getting in here, but that was the beginning of what the process was going to be to restore this hotel. This atrium becomes really a key factor in how we designed the units, how we got light into those units, how we got light into the atrium. We tore out the ceiling of this roof.”

They repainted and refinished all the floors. There’s new electrical, new furnishings, and new amenities, such as a laundry room, community center, and gym. All the restorations were undertaken without losing sight of the building's historical significance. 

“And kind of try to make it, keep it in the grand scale that it had,” said Withee. “You know, always try to imagine these very well-known people coming through here on a constant basis back in the 30s and 40s and you start to visualize how really important this place was.”