A lot of items from the Biltmore Hotel, including a bill for two days in August 1947, seven months after the Black Dahlia killing, has been listed on EBay. This map appears with a booklet titled “Guide to Biltmore Services.” Bidding starts at $1.99.

Early Hollywood portrait photography developed from the need of stars for portraits to send out looking for roles, and from studios realizing the value of selling their product through stars. Los Angeles and Hollywood photographers recognized for taking photographs of society folks were hired to shoot these images. One of the first to enter the field was a Hollywood-area photographer by the name of Frank S. Hoover.

Born in Lancaster, Pa., on Feb. 16, 1875, Hoover graduated from the Spring Garden Institute in Philadelphia, where he studied art and became a pictorial painter. He traveled to Hollywood in 1902 to join his parents, who had built the Hollywood Hotel in 1901.

Upon arrival in town, Hoover went into business with E.R. Walker, a Hollywood photographer with a studio just south of Prospect Avenue on the east corner of Gower. They became known for making reproductions of paintings, called Hollywood Prints, which they sold to retailers around the world. Hoover bought out Walker in 1905.

In his early years in Hollywood, Hoover became part of its cultural aristocracy. He was an art director of floats for Hollywood’s May Day Festival in 1908-1909, helped promote a Thanksgiving tennis tournament in 1910, and was one of the founders of the Hollywood Country Club in 1907.

As Edwin O. Palmer states in his book, The History of Hollywood, “He ultimately established the Hoover Photographic Studio, and for years was recognized as Hollywood’s leading photographer. By utilizing original lighting effects, he practically revolutionized the photo industry by producing photographs which exactly resembled paintings.”

Palmer also claimed that Hoover was instrumental in luring David Horsley of Nestor Film Co. to Hollywood to make pictures, “as he explained to him that the sunshine in California was the best to be found in the world for outside photographic work of any kind.” Horsley leased the former Blondeau Tavern at Sunset Boulevard. and Gower Street in 1911 to make films.

In the Feb. 26, 1911, Los Angeles Times, a listing noted that a building permit was issued for a two-room brick studio on Hollywood Boulevard between Vine and Ivar streets that would be built by Hoover Art Co. This became the studio at 6321 Hollywood Blvd. Hoover soon gained renown making portraits of Hollywood and Los Angeles’ leading citizens.

In October 1915, Hoover held a photographic exhibit at the Alexandria Hotel, which The Times positively reviewed. “The pictures show, all portraits, are numerous and delightful, and for the most part have been touched up with original colors in a process invented by Mr. Hoover. Much of the solidity of a portrait painted in oils is formed in many of the pictures, an effect largely due to the posing, which is admirable… .” Most of the prints included were portraits of children, including Richard Bennett’s “three charming little daughters… .” Hoover’s photographs followed strongly in the pictorialist school of photography, with soft focus and lighting.

When Hoover enlisted for World War I in 1917, he sold the business to his employee and fellow photographer Hendrick Sartov. On June 8, 1918, The Times ran a glowing story on the business. “This concern started business in a little building on Gower St. in 1905, with a line of photographic reproductions of famous paintings. About ten years later the work of portraiture was taken up, and Mr. Hendrick C. Sartov, the president of the corporation, took charge of the operating department. During the past few years, the Hoover portraits have been exhibited in different salons and in every case have taken high honors, and one is being displayed permanently in the National Salon at Washington, D. C., where it was awarded honors by the Photographic Association of America. The Hoover Art Company is adding new equipment in apparatus and lighting effects… .”

After returning to Hollywood after the war, Hoover attempted to collect the money for the studio, but was instead charged with fraud in his estimate of the business for that purchase. As The Times reported in November 1919, “The trial developed that Mr. Hoover was more an artist than a bookkeeper.” Things must have been resolved, because no verdict could be found in the paper. Hoover continued shooting photographs of leading citizens until his retirement in 1930.

While he and his family lived at 67 N. Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, he conceived the idea of constructing an elegant apartment building in the Sunset Strip area. Little did he realize that though he was no longer a photographer, his apartments would soon be a favorite location for film studios to shoot cheesecake photos of starlets out by the pool.

Hoover and his wife hired African American architect Paul R. Williams to design a luxury building of independent units at 1220 Sunset Plaza Drive, under the name Sunset Plaza Apartments, the only apartments Williams would design. The Dec. 13, 1935, Los Angeles Times described the site. “The area is circular and the plans call for a group of bungalow-type apartments covering less than twenty percent of the property, while the remainder is to be landscaped and arranged with pools, tennis courts, and other features.”

In April 1936, The Times noted that, “The building will be a two and part four-story structure with basement garage. It is to contain forty apartments in stylized Georgian architecture.” California Arts and Architecture featured the building in a 1937 story, as did Architect and Engineer magazine. Apartments came furnished by Bullock’s Department Store, and rented to an upscale crowd.

Elaborate round robin tennis matches featuring celebrities occurred in the late 1930s, with such residents as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lona Andre, Anita Louise, Buddy Adler, Harry Cohn, and Wendy Barrie taking part. Trade groups rented apartments as classy meeting locations. Studios employed the grounds, particularly the pool area, for stills shoots. The film American Gigolo shot out by the pool in 1980.

Many other celebrities lived there over the years, including Louise, Tommy Dorsey, director Eddie Sutherland, Dorothy Lamour, Carole Lombard, Katharine Hepburn, Charles Farrell, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Arlen, James Dean, Janis Paige, Virginia Hill, Bernadette Peters, and Robert Forster.

The Sunset Plaza retained its classy atmosphere even after Hoover’s death in 1946. Forty-three year resident Clare Engel told the 1983 Times, “…It was run as a very fine country club. The apartments were completely furnished, carpeted, draped. We didn’t even have to buy toilet tissue. I had a change of linens every day. We also had beautiful dishes.” Starting rent when she moved in 1940 was $250 a month.

In 1980, residents and preservationists worked to get the building listed as Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument No. 233, because new owners seemed anxious to tear it down and redevelop the land. This procedure bought the building a few years, before the owners demolished it in 1987 to construct a new condo building.

This remarkable postcard postmarked 1941 of Schaber’s Cafeteria at 620 S. Broadway, showing an Einar Petersen mural,  has been listed on EBay at Buy It Now for $6.99.

The Schaber Cafeteria at 620 S. Broadway was built in 1928 by the Schaber Cafeteria Co. (Alfred T. Schaber, president) on the site of Platt Music Co. with an adjoining See’s Candy at 622 S. Broadway and a Bellin’s Tie Shop at 618 S. Broadway. The cafeteria could serve 10,000 people a day, The Times said.

Hollywood Heights: Mary Mallory on Einar Petersen


620 S. Broadway as shown by Google Street View.

Einar Petersen mural at Schaber’s Cafeteria, 620 S. Broadway.

The cafeteria, with the motto “A good place to eat, a good place to meet”  opened in April 1928 as what The Times called “the most up-to-date cafeteria in America.” Schaber’s had a Spanish decor and the 10-piece Pryor Moore orchestra played during the dinner hour, featuring “Spanish selections,” The Times said. It also had a Sturtevant “air washer” “which purifies every cubic foot of air,” The Times said.

In 1946, Schaber’s was sold to Forum Cafeterias for $517,000.

In 1956, the cafeteria altered and “modernized” the facade, and added a marquee, The Times said.

And in a footnote to history, in 1949, James Earl Ray, the man convicted of killing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., committed his first crime by trying to steal a typewriter from the office of the Forum Cafeteria, Times staff writer Jerry Cohen wrote in 1968.

In 1973, The Times reported that the Forum Cafeteria had been acquired by Consolidated Services Inc., giving the address as 680 S. Broadway.

A 1985 story by Ruth Ryon about Petersen’s daughter Norma says that the business, by then called the Broadway Cafeteria, had been converted into a Carl’s Jr. She says that a panorama “blending fantasy and Spanish history on three walls” had been “stretched and framed into two paintings.”

Schaber’s remained a Carl’s Jr. into at least 1987, according to the Los Angeles Public Library’s online directories of Los Angeles.

This postcard of the Pin-Ton candy store, 427 S. Broadway, has been listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $29.97.

March 4, 1909: How about an ice cream and a stop at the occult bookshop?

The Pin-Ton appears to have opened about 1909, judging by ads in The Times, and continued until about 1918.  By 1919, it was Remick Song and Gift Shop. A search in the assessor’s records shows nothing for 427 S. Broadway, but lists a building at 425 S. Broadway with a construction date of 1932/36.

Aug. 12, 1942: The site of the Pin Ton became a Thrifty drugstore and introduced a new concept – self-service. Thrifty extensively remodeled the building in 1954, The Times says.

And here is the building, stripped of most architectural details, as shown by Google Street View. And yes, it’s labeled 425 S. Broadway.

And this is what the block once looked like:

Broadway and 2nd Street via Google’s Street View.

This picture showing the YMCA and the California Bank at the southwest corner of Broadway and 2nd Street has been listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $69.95.

Photo: Janet Blair sits on the little platform off the banks of the Lakeside Golf Club. Courtesy of Mary Mallory

Surrounded by homes and the Lakeside Golf Club, Toluca Lake is all but obscured from view by the public. Like the movie stars that soon flocked to it, the attractive little lake helped sell the community that grew up around it.

This area of the San Fernando Valley originally fell under the auspices of the San Fernando Mission before being broken into segments and sold off in chunks to Southern California businessmen like Isaac Van Nuys and J. B.Lankershim, among others.  Gen. Charles Forman bought up ranchland just north of the Cahuenga Pass, growing Bartlett pears, walnuts, citrus and other fruit. He suggested the name Toluca for the post office erected in 1893 across from the Chandler railroad depot in North Hollywood, also known as Lankershim.

Real estate developers Heffron, McCray, and St. John purchased 151 acres of the former Forman ranch just north of the Los Angeles River in 1924 to open a real estate tract called Toluca Lake Park, so named because of the eight-acre lake constructed in the middle of the property as an attractive selling feature.

Employing the overexaggerated prose of the day, the development’s first Los Angeles Times ad on Feb. 3, 1924, claimed that “Toluca Lake Park offers irresistibly all the alluring charms of Nature. Great oak trees, full bearing fruit trees, shrubbery, a picturesque park, a sparkling lake, an unchallenged breadth of view of surrounding mountain grandeur and stretches beyond.…”

The chief attraction for the area was the manmade lake, supplied by fresh water from the 27 natural springs situated at its bottom, which residents employed for boating, fishing and other recreation.

Nearby studios flocked to the lake for filming boat scenes. Actress Virginia Valli filmed a scene tipping over a canoe here in May 1924 for the Universal film “K – The Unknown.” The July 6, 1924, Times reported on an unidentified film shooting smuggling scenes on the lake, “The scene, depicting a rum-running fleet twelve miles out at sea, shows miniature oceangoing liners anchored on the center of the lake while small speed boats dash back and forth  with their party of passengers.”

Residents who bought lots adjoining the lake would gain exclusive right to use of the lake up to 155 feet from the shore. The real estate promoters claimed that they would construct a park for residents on the west end of the lake where huge eucalyptus would provide an inviting canopy for picnicking or other pursuits. A nearby walnut grove would provide peaceful vistas. Eventually the trees would be cut down to make room for more homes.

A consortium of Hollywood businessmen, including comedy filmmaker Charles Christie, spent $400,000 buying 125 acres south of the lake on April 12, 1924, to construct the Lakeside Golf Club in 1925. The swanky club, a constant celebrity draw for decades, consisted of a modern Spanish hacienda with handmade tile and terraces offering attractive views of the lake, along with 18 holes of golf hugging the lakeside.

Toluca Lake Park immediately attracted film stars, thanks to its location only blocks from both Warner Bros. and Universal Studios, and just a short drive over the Cahuenga Pass to Hollywood studios. Matinee idols like Billie Dove, Mary Astor, Lupino Lane, and Charles Farrell built homes. Farrell constructed an elegant Norman estate along the lake in 1928. He introduced swans to the water and began canoeing along the banks. Richard Arlen and Jobyna Ralston soon built at 10025 Toluca Lake Ave. According to an interview in the newspaper, Arlen and Ralston bought and paid for their lot, before getting married and building their $8,000 Spanish house. The cinema colony also included Walter Huston, W. C. Fields, Frank McHugh, Dick Powell, Jack Oakie, Lyle Talbot, Belle Bennett, Herman Mankiewicz, and George Brent.

Actress Eva Tanguay built  a home at 9936 Toluca Lake Ave., before auctioning off the home and furnishings in February 1930 after discovering that the man she married in 1927, Allen Parado, her accompanist at the time, was in fact only his alias. His real name was Chandos Ksiazkiewcisz. In 1933, Boris Karloff bought the residence.

In 1937, director Norman McLeod constructed a $25,000 home at 10010 Toluca Lake Ave.  African American architect Paul Williams designed a home costing $40,000 for director Irving Bacon on the opposite side of Toluca Lake Avenue that same year, which actors Jennie Garth and Peter Facinelli owned before selling earlier this year.

Aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her husband, George Putnam, constructed a home on Valley Spring Lane in 1935 to be near the Burbank Lockheed facility. After her disappearance, Putnam remained here for a time.

Toluca Lake continued growing beyond the boundaries of the small development toward both North Hollywood and Burbank, soon reaching Riverside Drive by the late 1920s. Within decades, however, the little lake disappeared from public view, save for occasional glimpses through the Golf Club gates or beyond private fences.

How about this retro artwork on the ad for “Nicholas Nickleby?” Sort of Peter Max via “Yellow Submarine.”

Jan. 10, 1983: A riot breaks out among an estimated 2,000 punk rockers during a concert at Studio Instrument Rentals at 6048 Sunset Blvd., The Times’ Michael Liedtke writes.

At first, everything was mellow:

“They were just punching each other and cutting each other a little with razor blades,” a studio employee said. “But that’s their forte. That’s what they do. They were fairly orderly.”

The 6000 block of Sunset Boulevard, the approximate location of Studio Instrument Rentals, site of the punk rock riot, via Google’s Street View.

The disturbance began when someone sprayed a fire extinguisher on a ” slam-dancing throng,” touching off a 90-minute riot in which people spilled out onto the street. (Police estimated the number at 500, while studio employees said it was 1,000 to 1,500).

Police barricaded several blocks of Sunset Boulevard and broke up the crowd.  Five unidentified people were arrested.

The story, alas, does not identify the bands.

A proposed bullet train is generating controversy. This one would have been between San Diego and Los Angeles.

The planned state office building on Spring Street between 3rd and 4th streets is targeted by a lawsuit that says its estimated 2,600 employees “would be exposed to increased air pollution, noise and traffic congestion downtown.” Opponents charged that state employees were being used as “guinea pigs” “for Spring Street’s revitalization.” Opponents also raised concerns about crime in the area, a block from skid row.

But supporters of the project noted that according to the LAPD, the Central Division had 228 murders in the previous four years and nearly 8,000 robberies. That’s contrasted with 350 murders and a similar number of robberies in Rampart Division and 197 murders and 10,000 robberies in Wilshire Division.

On TV: The Royal Shakespeare Company’s nine-hour version of “Nicholas Nickleby,”  which was a sensation.

Oct. 16, 1917: An architect’s rendering of Chaplin’s studios in The Times

Ninety-five years ago, comedian Charlie Chaplin constructed the first beautiful studio lot in Hollywood, the first to offer style to filmmaking. What had been merely an industry housed in utilitarian structures soon blossomed into one that featured elegance in its buildings.

 Filmmaking was exploding around Los Angeles in the 1910s as filmmakers moved west for the sunlight, varied landscape and freedom from patents. Early studios were merely converted buildings; Nestor Film Co. converted the former Blondeau Tavern into a working studio in 1911 and in late December 1913, Lasky Feature Play Co. rented a little barn at Selma Avenue and Vine Street as their filmmaking site.

Soon, film companies began building their own plants, mostly plain, functional buildings. Actor/comedian Charlie Chaplin decided to join the building boom in 1917 and constructed his own studio in Hollywood. His would evoke class and beauty.

The Oct. 16, 1917, Los Angeles Times reported that Chaplin would construct his own studio where “the plant will be at once a workshop and a home for the movie idol….” Chaplin and his brother Syd acquired the R. S. McClellan estate at Sunset Boulevard and La Brea Avenue as the site for their facility. The estate, constructed in 1914, consisted of five acres of lemon and orange trees and the “sightly ten-room colonial house set in the midst of lawn and gardens.” This house would become their home, while the lower acreage would house the studio.

Architects Meyer and Holler’s plans, featured in the paper, presented a picturesque little English Tudor village of buildings lining La Brea Avenue, to be constructed by Milwaukee Building Co. for approximately $100,000. Meyer and Holler were recognized as one of the top architectural teams in Los Angeles, designing Ince and Goldwyn Studios, and later designing Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre, the Montmartre Cafe and the Hollywood Athletic Club.

Per the newspaper, obstructionists originally mistakenly believed the studio would be erected adjacent to and behind Hollywood High School, disrupting students from learning. Businessmen spoke out to the City Council supporting construction. Banker Marco H. Hellman and other businessmen spoke out forcefully in favor of the project, noting the importance of the film industry in providing jobs to Los Angeles. He also stated, “Mr. Chaplin has done more in the way of advertising Los Angeles than probably any other man.” The council voted 8 to 1 in favor of construction proceeding.

The Jan. 20, 1918, Times noted that the new lot opened for business on Tuesday, Jan. 15. Writer Grace Kingsley described the special tour a happy and jolly Chaplin himself gave her of the new facility. Chaplin told her, “See, here’s a lemon orchard back of the stage. Think lemons must be my lucky fruit – can’t escape ‘em – had a lemon orchard back of us at Essanay and one at the Lone Star – hope they keep the lemons in the orchards, though.” Chaplin stated that “the fellow that couldn’t be happy here would be the fellow that would write a want ad in heaven.”

Kingsley found the comedian charming, especially in his description of his uniform of baggy old clothes as his “salary.” She understood the exacting nature of his work. “Charlie’s comedy seems entirely spontaneous – that’s its wonderful charm. But beneath it all he has the mathematics of merriment, the logarithms of laughter, at his finger’s ends.”

Chaplin spent many happy years making films at 1416 N. La Brea Ave., before being denied reentry to the United States in 1952.  The studio stayed busy, however, appearing in the film Hollywood Story in 1951, and acting as the home for many filmmakers. Stanley Kramer employed the location in 1954, American International in 1960, Red Skelton in 1962, and A & M Records in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, Henson Productions occupies the site, and a giant Kermit the Frog adorns the roof, clad in oversized clothes and bowler hat, an homage to the Little Tramp.

A little of Loretta Young (featured this month on TCM) goes a long way at the Daily Mirror HQ, but I noticed these shots of a department store in “Employees’ Entrance” and they reminded me of the sequence in “Public Enemy,” which was identified as being filmed at the May Co. These light fixtures certainly look familiar.

Hm. Is that an escalator in the middle-left?

There’s the escalator and there’s the May Co.’s clock!

Now was this the May Co. or a set? Time for more detective work.

Above: 1548 Lemoyne St. via Google Street View.

A vendor has posted photos of 1548 Lemoyne St. in Echo Park on EBay. Personally, I prefer the way it looked in 1911. Bidding starts at $12.99.

Look who fell for the fake Daily News front page. Yes, it’s a fake.

There are about a thousand things I would prefer to do besides shoot holes in the latest installment of the Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel franchise. But I heard from a friend last night that KNBC-TV Channel 4 had aired a segment about the Black Dahlia case. I missed it (thank heavens) but it’s on the nbclosangeles.com website. And the whole thing reminds me of poor old crazy Janice Knowlton (RIP), who insisted that her father, George, killed the Black Dahlia.

I wouldn’t recommend that anyone actually watch the segment, because you’ll just have to “unlearn” the mistakes but basically it rehashes the “Black Dahlia Avenger” books and insists that the Evil Genius killed the Black Dahlia in the basement of his house at 5121 Franklin Ave.

You may recall the previous “evidence” used to link the Evil Genius to the Black Dahlia case: photographs found in his belongings after his death that showed Elizabeth Short. Only, no, they weren’t of Elizabeth Short at all. Oops.

In reality, there is nothing to establish that the Evil Genius and Elizabeth Short – nicknamed the Black Dahlia – ever met. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

It is true that Dr. George Hodel was a suspect for a couple of weeks. This may sound more convincing than it actually is because there were hundreds of them; the investigators treated everybody who knew her as a suspect. And no, there’s nothing to show that they ever met, but the police also looked at anyone with any sort of  medical background (no, Dr. George Hodel was not a surgeon) who had anything in their past that involved sex charges, like Dr. Patrick S. O’Reilly, a Glendale osteopath who was accused of “mistreating” a telephone operator.

In this case, we have Paul Dostie, a retired police officer, and his cadaver dog Buster exploring the Sowden House in a segment that was taped but not used in a recent “Ghost Hunters” episode.

Now ask yourself:

Where are Elizabeth Short’s remains?
A cemetery in Oakland.

OK, if her remains are buried in Oakland, what can there possibly be to find in the basement of the Sowden House?
Well, she was drained of blood.

Correct. But hasn’t it been established that draining the body of blood required lots of running water – and therefore a drain?
Um. I guess so.

So if the body was cut in half but none it was missing and the blood was washed down the drain with large amounts of water, what is left to find?
Nothing.

Exactly. Another good story ruined.

At left, Good Fellows Grotto on Main Street in Los Angeles in a photo from the restaurant’s menu.

Somebody swiped a teapot from Good Fellows Grotto, the famed Los Angeles restaurant. It’s listed on EBay with bids starting at $78.

The Hollywoodland housing development possessed many unique features when it opened in 1923. The neighborhood was the first themed housing development built on hillsides, the first to include a shopping center in its environs, and the first to house an art gallery. While the developers planned the first two elements on their own, the art gallery came into existence because of the dream of its builder, John F. Kanst. Kanst was Los Angeles’ veteran established art dealer when he bought land on Mulholland Highway to construct his dream home and art space.

Kanst arrived in Los Angeles in 1895 at the age of 32 intent on teaching the finer points of art to the public, training them to recognize and appreciate great works to buy for decoration of their homes. He arrived at a time when most people hung “chromos” or copies on their walls instead of original works. Kanst began buying paintings from Southern California artists and slowly began the process of educating the public about what art was and why it was important. As he would state, “An original painting of good quality is a living presence in the home.”

To fund this ambition, Kanst joined a man named McClellan in 1896 to establish a proprietorship called the McClellan-Kanst Co. that offered framing, moldings, mirrors, and yes, pictures, to the public as a manufacturer and jobber. The company also sold little gifts and novelties at their store on 111-113-115 Winston St., opposite the Main Street post office.

In March 1907, Kanst bought out McClellan to establish his own company at 642 S. Spring St. called Kanst Art Co. He continued some of the same practices as he slowly began buying original watercolors and oil paintings and selling them. As he struggled through that first year, Kanst hustled for business by buying ads announcing he was cutting prices and even framing postal cards. In certain ways, Kanst was like Lamps Plus, always holding a sale. Kanst’s finances weren’t helped in 1909 when employee Allen J. Harvey was arrested and later sentenced to five years’ probation for taking paintings from the store.

Kanst sold off a large number of paintings in 1910 to travel to Europe for an art tour. When he returned, he began speaking to clubs and groups such as the California Art Club and Art Students League, as well as local women’s meetings. Kanst lectured on how dealers could educate and inform clients to improve their taste in art, as mentioned in an April 10, 1910, Los Angeles Times article. “In a land so new as our own, where deep culture is a rare quantity, the dealer has, in fact, to conduct a sort of ‘general store,’ where everyone may choose to suit his advancement; but where at the same time there will be some of the best for those who appreciate it.”

The gallery owner mentioned a buyer who began buying “commercial” pictures from a proprietor who sold copies. As the eye and taste of the collector grew, he moved from watercolors to oils and eventually to original works by local painters. Kanst also lectured on how architects needed to design more wall space in homes on which art could be hung.

As Los Angeles Times columnist Arthur Miller wrote in Kanst’s 1933 obituary, “Kanst believed art expressed refined taste but also was one of the best investments a home owner could make.” It also helped create an atmosphere and impression of culture.
The Friday Morning Club arranged with Kanst to hold an exhibit of American painters in November 1910, starting his practice of regular openings, both here and at his new Pasadena location at Hotel Green in 1911. Another regular practice arose that year when he began hosting auctions of artwork, mostly for those who had to liquidate their holdings. By 1913, Kanst was listed in “Who’s Who on the Pacific Coast” and later the “San Francisco Blue Book.”

Kanst required a larger space for all his many activities, and in February 1915, moved to 826 S. Hill St. to a two-story brick office building constructed by Mrs. Susanna Van Nuys and designed by Morgan, Wells, & Morgan. One room at the new location functioned as gallery for serious art, another as store and gathering place, as Kanst held lectures and other social functions there. Kanst preached that Southern California would become the center of the art world in 20 years, though he was off by a few decades.

Kanst also provided artwork for a model bungalow in the Walnut Park development of Huntington Park in December 1917 as a way to sell his business. He needed it, because selling original art was a slow growing proposition. In 1917 and again in 1919, Kanst auctioned all of his paintings to pay his bills. This latter sale included Japanese chinoiserie and an Albert Bierstadt painting.
The cultural maven also provided a literary and cultural salon for Los Angeles’ residents, adding occasional meetings of the Drama League of America in 1921, and book talks and recitals in 1922. Unfortunately, money troubles caught up with him again in the fall 1923, and Kanst auctioned his works, moving his gallery to 2875 W. 7th St.

Kanst read many articles in 1923 about an exclusive housing development rising in the Beachwood Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills, with elegant homes possessing gorgeous views of Los Angeles and surrounding areas. He was hooked. In 1924, Kanst purchased property at 6182 Mulholland Highway to construct his long-held dream, a beautiful gallery located in an elegant home. Hollywoodland main architect John L. De Lario and Harbin F. Hunter designed a simple but lovely Spanish Revival home that accentuated its knockout views.

Arthur Miller noted in the Oct. 22, 1933, Los Angeles Times, “It was a favorite device of Mr. Kanst’s, after showing his guests the paintings, which, of course, they really came to see, to draw aside a curtain and astonish them with what he deemed his finest picture – the vast view below and beyond his house.” Kanst gladly provided  a similar quote to Hollywoodland developers which they employed in their 1925 sales booklet.

Not only was this home the first one in Hollywoodland constructed on Mulholland Highway, but also the first residence in Los Angeles County built on the road.

In this gallery, Kanst exhibited the work of artist Charles M. Russell and many other recognized artists. Chicago illustrator and painter Joseph Birren arrived in May 1925 for a monthlong exhibit of his work. While in Hollywoodland, Birren painted three works documenting the area, “Lake Hollywood,” “Mulholland Dam,” and “Hollywoodland,” which were later exhibited there in 1926. I spoke with the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010 about them while researching “Hollywoodland,” and the museum could find no records that they have ever come up for auction. Only an illustration of “Hollywoodland” exists in the Nov. 14, 1926 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

Besides operating his gallery, Kanst continued educating the public through talks at clubs as well as loaning paintings for display in the Art Committee Room 351 in City Hall in April 1928.

Kanst’s Mulholland Highway home was a difficult place to reach unless one owned a sturdy car, so sometime in 1932 Kanst moved his gallery to 3349 Wilshire Blvd.  He held an exhibit of masters like Reynolds, Corot, Inness, and Moran here late that year. Unfortunately health and financial issues forced him to sell all the paintings from the Wilshire gallery on Feb. 28, 1933.

Sadly, on Sept. 11, 1933, John F. Kanst passed away, and was laid to rest at Rosedale Cemetery. Miller’s Times Sept. 17 obituary noted that many of the best established artists gained their first exhibits with him, and that Kanst probably sold more paintings in Southern California than anyone. He acknowledged Kanst as one of Los Angeles’ best art educators as well. Kanst’s widow, Lura M. Kanst, vowed to carry on the gallery at her Mulholland Highway home, but no ads or stories ever appeared again about it.

If you will remember (and of course you do) Christine Pelisek wrote in the Daily Beast on Feb. 3, 2013, that test results on soil taken from the Sowden House (George “Evil Genius” Hodel’s purported murder HQ) would be “expected next week.”

Buster the “Wonder Dog” supposedly located “the scent of death” in several places at the home and soil from these places was to be tested.

We’re waiting….

In 1982, two hand-carved wooden lions dating from 1797 vanished from the chancel at Mission San Xavier del Bac. In 1988, the reproductions shown above made by brothers Hector and Jorge Ortega were installed and fastened down to prevent theft. I never knew what happened to the originals until I visited today and heard two guides tell tour groups that a mentally challenged janitor wrote to a priest at the mission 16 years later and asked for forgiveness because he had taken them out back to an incinerator and burned them.

Thursday I may be going to Santa Barbara!!!

And here is Part 11 of the Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel transcripts for Feb. 28, 1950.

The George Hodel files Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10

Hodel climbed up or down some stairs – sounds of digging or something similar!!!

Unintelligible — flushes toilet and breaks wind at the same time. Ye Gods what a racket!!!

Frank Jemison phoned, said Hodel moving furniture out — if bug is found or all furniture moved phone him at CR 1 4917!!!!

how are you fixed for girls? I’m too old now — it does not make any difference to me now!!!!

I guess everybody has forgotten about this except for me.

Let me remind you that Christine Pelisek wrote in the Daily Beast on Feb. 3, 2013, that test results on soil taken from the Sowden House (George “Evil Genius” Hodel’s purported murder HQ) would be “expected next week.”

It is now March 8 and there has been no announcement of the results. I doubt there ever will be.

In the meantime the Sowden House is back on the market at Sotheby’s. Price upon request.

Photo: Earl Carroll at the groundbreaking for his nightclub, with Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor and W.C. Fields. Courtesy of James Curtis.

In the late 1930s, Earl Carroll reigned as Broadway’s exotic showman, producing splashy musical revues featuring statuesque, sultry showgirls. There was only one place left to conquer: Hollywood, the mecca of entertainment. If he was going to shift operations to the West Coast, Carroll wanted to knock Hollywood’s socks off with an elegantly flamboyant nightclub restaurant.

Carroll hired renowned architect Gordon Kaufmann, designer of such beautiful and diverse structures as the Los Angeles Times Building, the Santa Anita Race Track, Hoover Dam and the Doheny Mansion, to create a stylish Art Deco building at 6230 Sunset Blvd. Per an Oct. 16, 1938, Los Angeles Times story, the $500,000 project would be the first to include dining, dancing and stage shows under one roof.

To add a dash of exoticness, Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, the originator of “streamlined design,” created the interior. His unique additions to the property included a black patent leather ceiling, colorful paneling, and gracefully lined walls, along with other elaborate decorations. Neon tubes suspended from the ceiling and extending around the auditorium added sparkly glamour. The interiors also included a 15-foot tall nude statue of Carroll’s headliner and lover, Beryl Wallace. Her 20-foot high neon profile also graced the exterior of the building, with the words, “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world,” along with plaques signed by celebrities.

The structure would include 72,000 square feet in the theater, allowing room for two revolving stages, one at 80 feet, the largest of its kind ever constructed in the world.

To help finance the costs and add a touch of celebrity, Carroll established The Inner Circle, composed of such Hollywood dignitaries as Darryl Zanuck, Harold Lloyd, Walt Disney, Walter Wanger, Bing Crosby, and others, who put up $1,000 each allowing them lifetime cover charge and a reserved seat at the club.

Earl Carroll’s Theater wowed audiences when it opened Dec. 26, 1938, with the musical extravaganza, “Broadway to Hollywood,” featuring a cast of 100 and “the 60 most beautiful girls in the world,” the main draw for the mostly male audience. Ray Noble conducted the house band, accompanying scenes like “Candlelight,” “The Bolero,” “The Can-Can,” and “The Tyrolean.” During “Candlelight,” dancers ascended 100 treads of stairs 135 feet in the air.

As the business advertised, “Seats always reserved, no cover charge.” For $2.50, or a top price of $3.50 per seat on Saturdays, patrons enjoyed dinner, dancing, and a lavish show in the six-level theater seating 1,000. The club featured a special Sunday through Tuesday nights of $1 seats for the show and dancing. Earl Carroll’s nightclub quickly became one of Tinseltown’s premier nightspots.

Hollywood quickly came calling to use the facility as a filming location in 1939. A March 24, 1939, Times ad stated that “This Sunday night, March 26^th, 20^th Century-Fox is using the interior of our theatre for the new Sonja Henie picture and no seats are available. All tickets purchased for this date will be honored any other evening.”

The Paramount film, “A Night at Earl Carroll’s”, of course employed the nightclub as a location, shooting patrons entering and exiting the theater the week of March 21, 1940, for the movie.

The Times also employed the club for fashion shoots, decking Carroll’s showgirls in furs, hats, gowns, and shoes promoting local businesses as well as the nightclub. A Sept. 17, 1939, ad proclaimed, “Already acclaimed by over 250,000 satisfied patrons for its elaborate interiors, the lavishness of the stage revues, the excellent food, the most significant thing about the Earl Carroll Theater-Restaurant is the moderate prices.”

Carroll reached out to community groups, allowing the club to be employed for charity events. The National Council of Jewish Women presented the pageant, “The History of Women” at the theater on June 7, 1939. The Southern California Symphony Assn. Held 10 Sunday night concerts there from November 1942 through January 1943, opening with John Barbirolli conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a relaxed, almost Boston Pops-like performance. Five hundred student nurses were inducted into the United States Cadet Nurse Corps here on May 3, 1944, with Edgar Bergen as master of ceremonies. A radio broadcast wire from Washington included Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Hays, and Burgess Meredith in the ceremony.

By 1946, Carroll intended to construct the world’s largest theater seating 7,000 people nearby on Sunset Boulevard, between Gower and El Centro. Once again, Kaufmann designed an elaborate structure to cost approximately $5 million, where ABC would hopefully locate some of its studios. The building would feature a large underground parking garage, one regular stage, one ice rink and one water tank. The lavish three-hour show would include a motion picture, stage show, symphony and choral group. Alas, plans fell through and nothing was ever built.

After Carroll’s and Wallace’s tragic deaths in a 1948 plane crash, the theater soldiered on to middling business. Finally sold to Texas industrialist Frank S. Hofues in 1950 after wrangling between the Carroll and Wallace estates, the theater opened to “snappy, bright sort of shows,” but nothing rivaling Carroll’s opulent revues. Closing quickly, the theater was soon leased by CBS for TV soundstages, where such diverse programming as the City of Hope’s telethon and “Queen for a Day” were telecast.

On the 18th anniversary of its original opening, Dec. 26, 1953, the theater reemerged as the Moulin Rouge under the ownership of Frank Sennes. The operator featured lavish stage shows replicating Paris’ sidewalk cafes. Performers such as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee and Liberace entertained audiences, surrounded by opulently dressed singers and dancers. The Moulin Rouge operated successfully for seven years, until the draw of high salaries in Las Vegas lured stars away.

Shows came and went, before the theater became a teenage nightclub renamed Hullabaloo in 1966. The plaques bearing stars’ names like Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, and James Cagney were removed and replaced with ones carrying the names Bo Diddley, Chad and Jeremy, Ike and Tina Turner and the Vogues.

By 1968, the theater was renamed the Aquarius, and decorated with an astrological motif. The show “Hair” opened the remade theater. The Dutch rock group the Fool created an outdoor mural called “The Aquarian Age” that covered the entire front and west facades of the building. Per “The Times,” it featured “a panorama of cartoon goddesses and comic-strip landscapes,” with the celebrity-autographed plaques now placed below it.

The Center Theatre Group-Mark Taper Forum took over the Aquarius in the 1970s, and featured touring Broadway shows like “Oh! Calcutta” in 1978. Later that year, they opened “Zoot Suit” at the facility, also filming the stage show for theatrical release. Gordon Davidson envisioned the space as three separate theaters, but the group could never raise the funds for the conversion. Soon, it became the offices of Filmex.

Producer Martin Tahse bought the building from the CTG in 1982, with plans for a full-scale restoration and operation as the Cabaret Theatre presenting Off-Broadway musicals. Unfortunately, Tahse’s plans fell through, and the building languished for several years.

The television network Nickelodeon bought the theater in 1997 to use for recording live-action television series. Now, tweens and their parents pass through the same doors once visited by Hollywood celebrities like Errol Flynn, William Powell and Humphrey Bogart.

Oh those Brits! The Express has jumped all over the story about Zooey Deschanel and Jamie Linden visiting the Sowden House, Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel’s purported Murder HQ. Naturally, since it’s a better story, they dub it the “Black Dahlia murder house.” Of course there is nothing to show Elizabeth Short ever set foot in the place – or even that she knew Dr. Hodel.

By the way, we are still waiting on the results of tests on soil samples taken last year. The crime lab must be awfully slow, don’t you think?

By the early 1920s, real estate development was booming all around Los Angeles. For decades, the city had boldly advertised itself as a mecca in which average citizens could earn their share of the American dream under glorious sunshine and surrounded by beauty.

Los Angeles expanded west and north as the population exploded, and homes evolved from simple bungalows into elegant abodes. Neighborhoods such as Whitley Heights and Windsor Square catered to more prosperous Angelenos: movie stars, bankers and oil men. Streetcar tycoons and real estate moguls Eli P. Clark and Moses H. Sherman seized the moment to begin selling a long-held piece of property above Hollywood.

Arizona transplants Clark and Sherman arrived in Los Angeles in 1889, quickly laying the first streetcar lines in the city in 1893. Sharp and astute, the men bought up surrounding property adjoining or near their streetcar routes, opening them up for development when population began growing in those areas. They took as a partner Harrison Gray Otis, publisher of The Los Angeles Times, in order to gain free advertising via stories, photographs, and mentions in the paper. Upon Otis’ death, the new Times Publisher Harry Chandler joined the syndicate, and continued freely promoting their ventures.

In 1905, Clark and Sherman bought 640 acres at the top of what would soon be called Beachwood Canyon from Mrs. Julia E. Lord. Developer Albert Beach would name the canyon and the street extending into the canyon from Franklin Avenue after himself in 1911. The Clark and Sherman Land Co. operated a granite quarry on the site for years, biding time until interest in the Hollywood Hills was ripe.

On March 31, 1923, a story appeared in The Los Angeles Times announcing that the Sherman and Clark ranch land would be available for sale under the name Hollywoodland. Real estate developers Tracy E. Shoults and S. H. Woodruff would promote and sell the land, with Title Insurance and Trust Co. handling certificates of title.

Shoults was a well-respected veteran of Los Angeles real estate, with 20 years of experience, ranging from South Los Angeles up to Windsor and Marlborough Square, his latest projects. These areas featured large lots on which elegant homes were constructed by the upwardly mobile.

Woodruff, his second in command, was lucky to be included in the Hollywoodland project. With a checkered past stretching from New York to San Francisco and eventually Los Angeles, Woodruff had skirted jail time, though not suspicion. His job was to complete Shoults’ and the other partners’ visions.

As The Times described it, “It is the intention of the subdividers to make the tract, which is being marketed under the name of Hollywoodland, into one of the most attractive residential sections of the city.”

The developers proudly proclaimed themselves to be the first themed housing development constructed in the hills. To give the area an air of distinction, only four types of architecture could be employed in constructing homes: English Tudor, French Normandy, Mediterranean and what they called California Revival, an update of Spanish Revival. The development would feature its own small business area of grocery stores, a gas station, barbershop, beauty shop and cleaners, along with another first, their own stables. Bus service would extend into the neighborhood from Hollywood, with jitneys transporting residents to and from their homes. Granite from their quarry would serve as retaining walls, stairways and terraces.

Shoults and Woodruff soon hired two men who helped shape the area into an exclusive and elegant enclave: architect John L. DeLario, and publicity man L. J. Burrud. DeLario possessed an architecture degree and experience designing homes in the Windsor Square/Hancock Park area. He would go on to create several of the iconic homes for which the neighborhood is known.

Burrud stood out for his background in newsreel and documentary footage, shooting short films promoting car companies. He envisioned new ways of promoting the project to the public, such as shooting newsreel footage, making a documentary film recording the construction of a home, creating a radio show promoting the development and even a band that trumpeted the tract playing at Ralphs grocery store openings and on the radio show.

The most iconic element promoting Hollywoodland would be constructed months later, when Chandler himself hired advertising man John Roche to design a large sign advertising the property. A rickety sign composed of telephone poles, pipes, and chicken wire spelling out the word “Hollywoodland” in giant letters, like many other real estate signs, was erected. While the others eventually disintegrated in form and memory, the Hollywood Sign evolved from advertising sign into a worldwide icon representing the city of Hollywood to the world.

Mary’s book is available in paperback and for the Kindle.