Early 2019 when The Kensington was still under construction, the owners reached out to us because they were getting ready to build their monument signs. The Kensington is a new assisted living and memory care community in Redondo Beach. The community takes up about half of a block and spans across Knob Hill Avenue and Avenue A on the Pacific Coast Highway. As the property has two corners in intersections, they were planning to build two monument signs; one for the corner of PCH and Knob Hill, and the second one at the corner of PCH and Avenue A. After going through a few different options, they decided to use oxidized bronze dimensional letters for the main part of the sign, and the Kensington “K” is made from aluminum that is painted a specific Pantone gold color.
Oxidized bronze is a very high-end finish that is achieved by chemically treating the bronze and hand-rubbing the faces to create an antique look. For these letters, the sides have a matte finish since only the faces are treated. The letters were flat-cut from 1/2″ bronze and then treated. Once the letters are ready, they are tapped with studs for installation. The “K” goes through a similar process, the “K” is cut from 1/2″ thick aluminum and painted. Once dry, the logo was tapped for installation. As you can see from the photos, the letters are not mounted directly onto the monument sign, we mounted them with 1/2″ spacers so they sit 1/2″ off of the wall.
During the design process for the monument sign letters, we also started working on two smaller signs for the parking entrances. These signs also used oxidized bronze letters and painted aluminum letters, but we used 1/4″ thick bronze and aluminum instead of 1/2″ because these letters were not as large. The burgundy color was chosen based on their brand guidelines, as was the gold for the “K”.
