Block- Busted : Video Rental Chain Scraps Blue and Yellow Design After Neighbors Protest

It’s the sort of drama that could someday be available for rent on the shelves of Larchmont Village’s Blockbuster Video store: a David vs. Goliath tale of small-town virtue triumphing over big-city vice.

Except that this fight involves the huge entertainment company itself--pitted against those who live in the tiny neighborhood west of downtown Los Angeles.

Residents of the 2,000-home Larchmont area were stunned a month ago when a pair of 50-year-old shade trees in the center of the village were suddenly chopped down.

It turned out that the thick, leafy ficus branches had obscured something never before seen on the village’s quaint main street. Looming behind them was the outline of a flashy Blockbuster store, complete with a modernistic tower and space for 110 feet of blue and yellow neon.

Losing the trees was bad enough. But seeing a glitzy, chrome and glass structure rise amid Larchmont’s hodgepodge of mom-and-pop storefronts was too much to bear.

So David slew Goliath.

Protests from homeowners and merchants have prompted Florida-based Blockbuster to halt construction and redesign the store--scrapping its trademark steel-and-neon look in exchange for the world’s first English Tudor-style Blockbuster outlet.

The video rental store will resemble none of the chain’s other 4,500 blue and yellow buildings. Instead, it will feature an old-fashioned brick and timber facade accented by multi-paned windows and a low-profile, wooden sign. And two new large ficus shade trees will be planted outside its front door.

“We feel we have satisfied the reservations expressed by residents and groups over there,” Blockbuster spokesman Wally Knief said from the company’s Fort Lauderdale headquarters. At the urging of residents, Blockbuster is also reevaluating its hours of operation.

The uproar has also led Los Angeles officials to plan new construction controls for the 70-year-old Larchmont Boulevard business district--something that could become a model for other neighborhoods seeking to preserve local ambience.

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The episode’s ending has prompted sighs of relief both inside and outside the village.

Described by some as the “little Laguna of Los Angeles” and as the “Mayberry of Mid-Wilshire,” Larchmont Village’s block-long row of stores resembles a small town in the Midwest--the kind of place where shopkeepers know their customers’ names and even offer credit to customers’ children.

The picturesque street has been a backdrop for countless movies and TV shows ranging from Keystone Kops shorts filmed in the late 1920s to the music video that was being produced there last week.

Residents of the adjoining neighborhoods of Windsor Square and Hancock Park--where many in the entertainment industry live in million-dollar homes--are fiercely loyal to the tiny shopping district.

Six years ago, homeowners helped block construction of a two-story office and retail complex with underground parking. Chagrined, the developer acknowledged in a letter to the monthly Larchmont Chronicle newspaper that “Larchmont is not Century City, and should not become one.”

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In 1993, residents pressured a drugstore chain to scale back a proposed Larchmont Boulevard store that homeowners feared would have forced small village shops out of business. Later, fearful that a rush to open restaurants on the street was changing the character of the area, residents persuaded Los Angeles officials to set limits on the number of restaurants that were allowed.

“I couldn’t believe that Blockbuster, as big as they are, had gotten themselves into this mess,” says Michael Cornwell, president of the Windsor Square Assn., a nearby homeowners group. “It was just incredible. Nobody knew what was happening until that one Saturday when they cut down the trees and exposed it.”

Don Brown, a Windsor Square resident since 1927 who spent his childhood going to movies in the old Larchmont Theater, which occupied the Blockbuster site through the mid-1950s, said: “I think it’s the demise of Larchmont. A lot of neon and flashing things isn’t called for. Maybe it’s progress. But we’re losing.”

Boulevard property owner Susan Blumenthal, who with her husband and brother co-owns the Blockbuster site, was also surprised by the look of the new building. Both she and her brother grew up in the area and still live in Hancock Park.

“The original plans they’d submitted were entirely different,” Blumenthal said. “They had city approval for the neon look. But we said this is not what we approved.”

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Blumenthal said Friday that Blockbuster officials decided to build the 35-foot tower and add the neon after learning that city officials didn’t object to the company’s regular look.

Blockbuster spokesman Knief agreed Friday that the design was a mix-up. And an unfortunate one, at that.

“We don’t want to go in and create a festering situation” when opening new stores, Knief said. But there was no local architectural review panel to assess the Larchmont design, so “we planned according to standards for Los Angeles city.”

Larchmont’s revised Tudor design “will not look like the average Blockbuster store,” he said.

City Councilman John Ferraro, who represents the Larchmont area, said steps are being taken to help preserve the “unique, small-town atmosphere” of the village.

A new design-review ordinance that is being prepared “will assure compatibility with the village atmosphere,” Ferraro said.

And Arthur Sayah, co-owner of the 14-year-old Village Video rental shop two doors south of the Blockbuster site, said he isn’t worried about the change in the business atmosphere that he will soon face. “My rental prices will be cheaper than Blockbuster’s,” he said.