Disney's First Purchase: 2495 Lyric Avenue

 Before Disney moved to Woking Way (see yesterday's post), he had purchased a lot and built a house on Lyric Avenue, also in Los Feliz Hills.

Walt purchased a 2875 square foot lot on the corner and Roy purchased the lot next door. The lots cost about $1000 each, and they both bought Pacific Ready-Cut homes for their lots. Pacific Ready-Cut homes were ready-to-assemble and shipped to the site, complete with knotless Douglas Fir framing, cabinets, nails, doors, windows, screens, hardware, paint, sinks and an instruction manual. Pacific Ready-Cut had built a dozen model homes in 1922 and eventually sold over 37,000 houses in Southern California.

 Walt's home was 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and 1066 square feet. Roy's home was the mirror image of Walt's. The homes arrived at the Disney's lots in 12,000 pieces via boxcar in August 1926. By the time construction was done in December, the two homes cost the brothers about $8000 each, including the lots. When Walt and Lillian moved to Woking Way in 1932, a co-worker moved into Walt's house. That's Walt's house with the green roof.

 These two homes still exist today. The current owner of Walt's house had heard rumors that it had once been owned by Walt Disney while he was considering the purchase - the owner at that time had died and the house sat vacant for six months. The new owner did not learn the truth until he did research after his purchase in 1997 for $150,000. Unfortunately, the house was in such disrepair that it had to be gutted to bare studs, with new electrical and plumbing throughout.

As close as I can tell, here is the floor plan of Walt's house from a Pacific Ready Cut homes catalog. The house outline and window locations match up, but it appears that Walt's house doesn't have the fireplace.