The Sterling House at 14 Levontin Street was born in 1926 at the hand of **Yehuda Magidovitch**, the master architect of early Tel Aviv, who knew how to weave East and West together. The **Sterling family commissioned the house** — some records name Zvi Sterling, others Eliezer and Tzipora Sterling — an affluent Ashkenazi family active in trade and real estate. Their home became both an investment and a statement of success, marking their place in the expanding heart of the young city.

The façade is a pure example of Tel Aviv’s **eclectic style**: projecting bay windows, a symmetrical rhythm of openings, and above the entrance, an arched balcony-loggia, from the 1930s, shops operated beneath its ground-floor arches, with signs in Hebrew, Russian, and English — a glimpse of the city’s multilingual pulse. The building stood within the area later designated by **UNESCO (2003)** as the buffer zone of the *White City*, and from the start it embodied dignity, prosperity, and modern urban identity.

Over the decades, the house’s ownership mirrored the city’s own transformations. In **1935**, Sterling sold it to **Yitzhak Shaltiel**, a merchant dealing in oils and provisions. By **1948**, the owner was **Lea Wildenberg**, whose refusal to build a bomb shelter prompted a tenants’ protest, as recorded in municipal correspondence. Shortly thereafter, in **1948–49**, the property passed to **Eliezer Toktli**. The inventory of the time lists three floors, twenty-four rooms, and a patchwork of rooftop additions — one of them an unauthorised carpentry shop. Like much of the neighbourhood, the building declined with time. In **1977**, resident **Reuven Cohen** wrote to the city: “The staircase is unsafe — a disaster may occur.” The house was added to the registry of “dangerous structures,” a status reaffirmed in **2011**.

Yet history loves its reversals. In **2017**, architect **Nitsa Shmuk** began a careful restoration, uncovering stairwell wall paintings beneath layers of plaster, reviving the prewar façade’s sculptural depth, and reorganising the interior: seven apartments above, two shops below, a discreet elevator, and new systems seamlessly integrated into the old frame.

Today, **14 Levontin** once again reads as it was meant to: the loggia greets the street, the bay windows hold the rhythm, and commerce hums again beneath the arches. Behind this quiet symmetry, one can still hear it all — the ambition of the Sterlings, the pragmatism of Shaltiel, Wildenberg’s dispute, postwar decline, Cohen’s plea, and, finally, the cautious joy of renewal. The house has not merely survived; it has become a chronicle of the neighbourhood itself — a layered testament to a century of life in Tel Aviv.