Teenage fashion model turned television actor Beau Garrett, perhaps best known for her co-starring role on Bravo’s former dramedy “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,” has put her cute-as-a-button starter cottage in L.A.’s fashionably funky Echo Park up for grabs at $675,000. Located up a long flight of steps on one of the trendy and rapidly gentrifying East Side neighborhood’s charming and historic hillside stair streets, the itty-bitty boho cottage was acquired by Garrett almost 15 years ago for $466,000.
Built in 1914 on a pocket-sized parcel of less than 3,000 square feet, and unconventionally painted a deep and admirably audacious shade of orange, the pint-sized pad is all but invisible behind a secured fence fetchingly draped with prickly sprays of fuchsia bougainvillea. At just 516 square feet — barely bigger than a two-car garage, there isn’t much room to spread out in the cozy one-bedroom and one-bath bungalow. However, the most has been made of the unpretentiously picayune space that includes an enclosed entry porch that cleverly accommodates multiple functions: A built-in daybed does double-duty as a reading nook and a bed for overnight guests, while a slender floating wood shelf in front of a huge window makes for a sunny spot to do a bit of work and/or have a bite to eat.
The living room feels somewhat larger than it is thanks to a vaulted ceiling, oversized windows and French doors on either side of a fireplace that features a shabby-chic-y distressed wood mantelpiece and an organic river-rock raised hearth. Barely big enough to turn around, the separate and by-every-standard compact kitchen squeezes in a full-sized vintage range and an apartment-sized refrigerator.
Bantam but light-filled, the bedroom is tucked behind the kitchen with direct access to a simple bathroom jazzed up with eye-catching floor tiles, and a tiny windowed space between the bathroom and the living room serves as a walk-in closet and dressing area.
The French doors in the living room open to a stone dining terrace, a pass-through window in the kitchen allows for easy alfresco entertaining and an outdoor shower without any sort of privacy enclosure is enshrouded in lush tropical plantings, while the postage-stamp-sized property’s most pleasant and unexpected surprise might be a roomy, trellis-covered and breeze-licked deck that’s nicely shielded from neighboring homes by surrounding trees and that smartly extends the living space to the outdoors.
The property is available through the Rogers, Stellini and Ritt team at Compass.
Garrett, who prior to the coronavirus pandemic co-starred in the two-person play “Saugerties” at the Hudson Theatre in L.A. and co-stars opposite Katherine Heigl in the upcoming Netflix series “Firefly Lane,” which premieres later this week, upgraded her residential circumstances about three years ago to a considerably larger but still modestly sized three-bedroom Spanish-style bungalow secreted down a tiny private lane in the historic Beachwood Canyon area that she scooped up for just over $1.5 million from comedy writer/director Jonathan Krisel, co-creator of the cult-favorite sketch comedy series “Portlandia” and the black comedy series “Baskets.”