Draft:Sakai-Kozawa Residence/Tokio Florist

The Sakai-Kozawa Residence/Tokio Florist is a Tudor Craftsman house built around 1911 and moved to the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1929.. The house is noted as the longtime residence of the Sakai-Kozawa family, who operated their business Tokio Florist at the property from 1960 to 2006. The residence and Tokio Florist pole sign was named Los Angeles Historical Cultural Monument #1198 in November of 2019.

House / Architecture

The house is in the Tudor Craftsman style, consisting of wooden frames, stone, and stucco cladding with a cross-gabled roof with exposed rafters in the gables. The exterior landscaping includes a Japanese garden in front of the house with winding paths, bridges, and water features and an upper terrace behind the garages with raised beds for growing flowers, fruits, and vegetables. On the property also sits a greenhouse, a barn-style two-car garage, and a three-car garage. Notably, a freestanding pole-mounted commercial sign reads "Tokio Florist" on the western property line.

Japanese American Cultural History

Further Information: Internment of Japanese Americans

Despite restrictive immigration and land ownership laws present before World War II in Los Angeles, the Japanese community in Los Angeles began to grow during this time. This included neighborhoods such as Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and East Hollywood. Many Japanese with agricultural knowledge found employment in the flower industry.

During World War II, following Executive Order 9066, approximately 37,000 Japanese Americans living in Los Angeles were sent to remote concentration camps. These Japanese Americans were forced to sell their businesses or properties for pennies on the dollar. After the war and the end of internment, many Japanese returning to Los Angeles found their businesses and properties stolen or vandalized.

Many of the once prominent Japanese flower wholesalers could not regain the success they had built pre-war. However, California's flower cultivation was still dominated by Japanese Americans in the post-war period.

Sakai Kozawa Family

The Sakai family had been present in Southern California's agricultural system since the 1920's when Asakichi Kawakami and his family worked on Japanese-owned flower farms in the Sun Valley neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region. By the late 1920's the family moved to the Los Feliz area and worked for nurseries. In 1929 recently widowed Yuki (Kawakami) Sakai opened a flower shop on Los Feliz Boulevard named Tokio Florist. This flower shop was supplied by nearby farmland leased by Sakai to grow and sell flowers to wholesalers.

In 1942, the Sakai family was displaced and relocated to Manzanar internment facility until 1945. After the war, the family returned to Los Angeles. In 1948, Sumiko Sakai married Frank Kozawa. Tokio Florist reopened in Los Feliz and operated there until the area's booming residential and commercial development forced the family to move again. In 1960, Tokio Florist was established at 2718 Hyperion Ave, its Silver Lake location. The Tokio Florist business operated out of the Sakai-Kozawa residence from 1960 to 2006 and still stands as a monument representing the history and cultural impact of Japanese Americans in Los Angeles.