Near the top of an impossibly steep and winding street in the hills of Echo Park, there sits a quietly fading house, its cracked gray shingles and worn brown siding dappled by the shadows of surrounding trees. It was once the home of one of Echo Park’s many notable artists: the groundbreaking printmaker, Paul Landacre, a highly regarded woodcut artist from the 1930s. His art captures the mood of the neighborhood and of California during his era. He lived in his hillside cabin from 1932 until his death in 1963. Born in Columbus, Ohio, he was an athlete as a youth. During his sophomore year at Ohio State University, he contracted a life-threatening illness that left him partially disabled. Landacre moved to California for his health. He eventually settled in Echo Park with his wife, Margaret McCreery. The Landacres’ rustic cabin now overlooks the Glendale Freeway. The Landacres purchased the property on El Moran Street in 1932, when he was just starting to earn renown for his work. L.A. was then one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States — but in Edendale, as it was then known, you could live amid native black walnut trees, possums and scrub jays. Weeds have swallowed up the staircase of the cabin, pictured, and its windows are either broken or boarded up. The big live oaks Landacre etched with such brio are still there, but the old curving street — the Landacres had a whole block to themselves — has been sealed off and is eroding away. This section of the neighborhood once was known as the Semi-tropics Spiritualist tract, and the Landacre home was declared a City of Los Angeles landmark (Historic Cultural Monument No. 839) in March 2006. Landacre’s name is still painted on the mailbox of the now-padlocked home.