Avenel Cooperative Housing Project, Cooperative housing project in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, US.

The Avenel Cooperative Housing Project is a residential complex containing ten identical units arranged in two rows of five, stepping back progressively from the street frontage. Each unit spans approximately 960 square feet and includes a private back patio with movable interior walls that allow residents to reconfigure their living spaces.

Ten couples hired architect Gregory Ain to build Avenel Homes in 1947, each contributing $11,000. At least four of the original members, including actor Howland Chamberlain, were blacklisted or questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee. The complex was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2005 and as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2021.

Of the ten original member households, at least four were blacklisted or questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee, among them actor Howland Chamberlain, which led to the project being called a cooperative living experiment for a group of communists. Resident architect Richard Corsini said most of the first residents were path-breaking political types, and the units stayed popular with progressive owners after the cooperative broke up.

The ten units stand on two narrow lots off Avenel Street in Silver Lake, in two attached rows of five that step back from the sidewalk in a saw-tooth line. They are private homes, so visits are limited to viewing the street facades and the staggered front doors from the public sidewalk.

Each couple in the original cooperative put in $11,000 to hire Gregory Ain. Preservation architect Gordon Olschlager moved into one unit in 1992 and restored it from Ain's original drawings, bringing back the sliding glass walls and sliding wood room dividers; he won a Merit Award in the Western Home Awards for the work.