Plans Revealed For New Los Feliz Home of Silverlake Conservatory of Music

Architect Barbara Bestor has been all over lately—she designed the new second-most expensive house in Silver Lake and is restoring the first—and now her firm Bestor Architecture, which scored a national AIA award last week for the Beats by Dre headquarters, has been selected by the Silverlake Conservatory of Music to handle the redesign of its new campus. Founded by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and musician Keith Barry, the nonprofit school has been operating out of an 1,800-square-foot storefront space in Sunset Junction since 2001, but recently acquired an 11,000-square-foot office building on Hollywood Boulevard.

Built in 1931 to house a cosmetic company with the excellent name Colonial Dames, in recent years the Colonial Revival structure served as a base for Scientology-related rehab group Narconon International and as office space for real estate agency Keller Williams.

Though designs are still in the early stages, Bestor tells Curbed that the plan is to work within the existing structure to build the Conservatory's lesson rooms, performance space, administrative offices, and retail store. Contracting will be done by mogul Steve Bing's company, Shangri-La Construction, and both firms will be donating their services.

SCM currently has an enrollment of about 700 students, one-third of whom are on scholarship, and conducts many programs and workshops off-site due to space constraints. With the new building, says executive director Jennifer Rey, the school will be able to hold all programs on campus and accommodate nearly twice as many students, with a projected goal of 50 percent on scholarship.

· The Silverlake Conservatory of Music is Moving to Los Feliz [Curbed LA]
· Barbara Bestor [Curbed LA]