A company called H for Hyperion LLC wants to tear down Tenants of the Trees, the Silver Lake bar at 2810 Hyperion Ave., and put up a five-story apartment building designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.
The application went to the Los Angeles Department of City Planning the week of Oct. 19, Urbanize LA reported on Oct. 26. It calls for 28 one-bedroom apartments over about 2,200 square feet of ground-floor retail. Five units would go to lower-income renters. Renderings show a low-rise building wrapped in steel.
For about four decades before Tenants opened, the building was a gay bar. First came Woody’s. Then MJ’s.
“Woody’s was very friendly with no pretentions, a real working class place,” David Del Valle, of Hollywood, told Los Angeles magazine.
Tenants of the Trees Co-Owner Jason Lev Linked to H for Hyperion LLC
State business records tie H for Hyperion LLC to developer Jason Lev, The Real Deal reported Oct. 28. Lev co-owns Tenants of the Trees with Reza Fahim.
The pair set a Sept. 15, 2015, opening after a big remodel of the old MJ’s, LAist reported that month. Fahim designed it and called it a “mid-century outdoor cabin bar.”
“I was inspired by the DNA of the neighborhood,” Fahim told LAist.
Neighbors weren’t all charmed. In 2016 the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council asked the Police Commission to deny the bar a live entertainment permit, citing its management and building and accessibility violations, LAist reported.
What the Silver Lake Redevelopment Application Seeks
The city case number is EAR-2026-5513-DB-VHCA, Urbanize reported. The project uses density bonus incentives, which let a builder go bigger than zoning normally allows in exchange for affordable units. EAR stands for Expanded Administrative Review in city planning records.
That path doesn’t call for a separate environmental clearance or a public hearing, according to Urbanize. Los Angeles magazine reported that the city isn’t asking for a historic assessment of the building either.
How Woody’s Hyperion Became MJ’s, Then Tenants of the Trees
Eric Brightwell writes a local history column for the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council. “P. N. Woodward founded Woody’s Hyperion at 2812 Hyperion Avenue in late 1968,” Brightwell wrote in August. People called it Woody’s or The Hyperion.
Los Angeles magazine dates the bar’s run to the 1970s and ’80s. It says the ONE Archives at USC “cites nearly a dozen gay guides that mention the club” from those years. The archive also holds photos of “Woody’s Hyperion” in its Stan Freitas collection, in a set titled “Woody’s Meeting, August 1984.”
“Any of us who lived in the era of the Blue Parrot and Studio One knew that all the bars away from West Hollywood were where you went if you wanted to hook up,” Del Valle told the magazine.
Woody’s “closed in 2002 and became the clubbier (but still gay) MJ’s,” Brightwell wrote.
MJ’s threw its “last dance” on March 29, 2014, Patch reported at the time.
