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The design of this large apartment building dated from the late 1920s. The building had a strongly vertical composition with stepped Art Deco ornamentation above the first floor windows and at the cornice line. Architect Max Maltzman probably designed the building before he became an architect and completed it just after he received a provisional certificate to practice architecture in CA in 01/1930. (He got the permanent certificate in 04/1930.) Unfortunately for him, he received his license just as the building market took a steep dive, although Los Angeles still had more commissions than almost anywhere else in the US. During the 1930s-1940s, the Ravenswood Apartment Building changed ownership frequently. In 1933, the Los Angeles Property Management Company, Limited, operated the Ravenswood for its owners. According to the Los Angeles Times of 09/25/1938: "In one of the largest realty deals here this year, sale of the Ravenswood Apartment Hotel at 570 North Rossmore avenue along with a vacant site adjoining the building at the north for $750,000 was announced yesterday. With consummation of final details yesterday, the ownership of the seven-story apartment building, one of the largest in the West, passed from the George Pepperdine Foundation to a buyer for whom title was taken by the Title Insurance and Guaranty Co. of San Francisco. It is understood that eastern capital acquired the property." (See "Rossmore Avenue Hotel Purchased for $750,000," Los Angeles Times, 09/25/1938, p. 13.) An article in the same newspaper in late 11/1938, disclosed the buyers to have been Lloyd S. Harriman and Milton Meyer. (See "Realty Field Here Surveyed," Los Angeles Times, 11/29/1938, p. A3.) Between 1938-1943, the Harriman/Meyer ownership group sold the property to Albert Ichelson. In 05/1943, the Los Angeles Times called the Ravenswood "one of the largest and best-known [apartment] structures in the city" and related that the Continental Realty and Management Company, Incorporated, had bought it from San Francisco investor Albert Ichelson. Continental then resold the buildng to Theodore Kosloff for more than $750,000. In 09/1981, the Ravenswood had an asking price of $8.1 million, a price that also included a three-story, 13-unit apartment block at Clinton Street and Rossmore Avenue. The Kor Group, purchased the Ravenswood in 2000 and, during its first three years of ownership, restored many of the building's original features.

The actress, Mae West (1893-1980), lived in the Ravenswood from 1932-1980 in Apartment #611. The apartment building, containing 96 units, was only a half a mile from Paramount Pictures Studios when she moved in. In 1933, she shared the apartment with her brother, the vaudeville actor, Jack West, Jr. Her ghost was said to inhabit the unit still in 1998. The Paramount Studio apparently rented quarters in the building for some of its stars, West being one of them. At one time, Ava Gardner and Judy Garland were also said to have lived in the Ravenswood. Some of the apartments on the top two floors possessed panoramic views of the area, from the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles to Beverly Hills. The building's lobby had terrazzo floors and lofty, double-height ceilings. The Gebhard and Winter "Architecture of Los Angeles A Compleat Guide," (Salt Lake City, UT: Gibbs M. Smith Publishing, 1985), p. 195, referred to the building as the "Ravenwood."