The Patrick M. Longan residence at 1305 Durand Drive, designed by John De Lario, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Although a heavily advertised, exclusive real estate development owned by such investors as Harry Chandler, M. H. Sherman and Eli P. Clark, Hollywoodland mainly succeeded because of the work and efforts of mostly forgotten men. Two individuals, however, gained importance over the decades for their public contributions, though details of their lives remained clouded in obscurity. John L. De Lario’s and Albert Kothe’s work helped epitomize Hollywoodland in shadow and substance.

Architect John Lucien De Lario’s elegant house designs established the glamour and romantic beauty of the neighborhood, drawing celebrities. Unlike the solid landmark status of his work, his life fluctuated between the high and low. Born July 16, 1888, in Laramie, Wyoming, De Lario discovered a love of architecture as a young man. Unlike many in his profession at the time, he studied building and design, joining the Sigma Beta Pi fraternity in 1904 before graduating from the University of Wyoming in 1905.

After his father died, De Lario helped support his mother and younger brother. Sensing better opportunity in Los Angeles, De Lario, his mother, and brother moved south in 1909, taking up residence at 2707 S. Western Ave. De Lario worked for Hudson and Munsell as a draftsman for several years before moving to the more respected and important firm of A.C. Martin. To enhance his career, De Lario joined the American Institute of Architects and the Los Angeles Architectural Club, helping organize exhibits and programs.

De Lario joined Feil and Verge in 1922 and began designing homes for the Windsor Square and Hancock Park communities at addresses such as 620 S. Rossmore and 630 S. Rossmore while also crafting the striking Tudor office of construction company Birch O’Neal on Larchmont Boulevard in 1923.

De Lario’s lush, elegant designs drew the attention of New Windsor Square and Marlborough Square developers Tracey E. Shoults and S. H. Woodruff. Sherman, Clark and Chandler hired the two men to lead development of their upscale Beachwood Canyon tract called Hollywoodland in 1923, and the men quickly hired De Lario to continue his refined ideas for the master planned community. De Lario served as supervisory architect for the development along with Harbin S. Hunter, earning $150 per design as early as July 1923, per a check stub in the Hollywoodland papers of M.H. Sherman at the Sherman Library. He would go on to receive this sum for designs of homes as well as the model for the planned but unbuilt Mack Sennett house atop what is now Mt. Lee.

The sunroom of the Longan residence, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Shoults and Woodruff envisioned Hollywoodland as a California version of an European hillside community, an ethereal Brigadoon hidden in the canyon. Their tract was one of the first master planned communities in Southern California, containing residential and commercial districts as well as its own riding stable, a first. De Lario would serve as architect for many of the outstanding designs in the community, shaping the graceful, romantic vision of Hollywoodland. De Lario coined the term “California Renaissance” for his and the development’s main design, “which tends to create a home delightful, beautiful, and comfortable, with the combination of modern comforts and conveniences and the early romance and enchantment of history.”

Over the next few years, De Lario worked out of various Hollywoodland real estate offices at 2684, 2690, and 2699 N. Beachwood Dr., both designing elevations and supervising the work of other architects for the tract. Several young draftsmen by the names of Lionel Banks, Benjamin Berry, and Nathan Baum assisted him in the work. De Lario concentrated mostly on Spanish Colonial Revival architecture, with occasional English Tudor and French Normandy sketches thrown in. At the same time, he occasionally drafted impressive house plans for others, like the luxurious John Bowers and Marguerite de la Motte mansion on Montcalm Dr. off Mulholland Dr. in 1926.

De Lario’s Hollywoodland work ranges from the magnificent hillside mansion Castillo del Lago overlooking Lake Hollywood to the English Tudor demonstration house on Westshire to the artistic Kanst Art Gallery and residence on Mulholland Highway to the graceful curves of the brick commercial district at the distinctive asymmetrical entrance gates. Perhaps greatest of all was the unbuilt Mack Sennett hacienda atop what is now Mt. Lee. De Lario fashioned a sumptuous villa striking in its refined elegance to lord over the development and its peak, to be visible to both city and valley.

De Lario described his design process for Hollywoodland in the July 5, 1925, Los Angeles Times, striving to fit his designs into the landscape following the organic principles of Frank Lloyd Wright. “All of California was designed by the Great Architect, and the present-day architect’s duty is to fit his structure or dwelling into the natural landscaping of the Golden State in a way which is architecturally beautiful, comfortable, convenient, and livable….today the members of the architectural profession are striving for simplicity and comfort in order that beauty shall be paramount.” He also told a Times columnist, “It is true that a purely California architecture, partly Spanish, partly Italian, really seems to be the best fitted for our needs in the Southland.”

As construction virtually ground to a halt in 1928 as the developers moved their focus to their new tract at Dana Point, De Lario left Hollywoodland to open his own office in artist Einar Petersen’s bungalow business court at 4350 Beverly Blvd. De Lario joined the Ralph B. Lloyd Corporation in 1929, moving his to 535 S. Knoll Drive in West Hollywood. Finally ready to settle down, De Lario married Kathryn C. McAuliffe in Carson City, Nevada, on July 9, 1929. For the next few years, De Lario designed homes in the Beverly Hills and West Hollywood areas while his wife worked as a buyer for Bullock’s Wilshire department store.

In 1932, De Lario left Lloyd Corporation under mysterious circumstances, and the couple and their young son would bounce between residences in South Los Angeles and apartments on Sunset Boulevard and Edendale Drive for the next few years. In November 1935, De Lario traveled solo by merchant marine to the Philippines, returning by February 1936. The Catholic couple would soon separate, annulling their marriage. On the 1940 and 1950 censuses, however, Kathryn  De Lario listed herself as a widow. De Lario retired from architecture in 1942, moving to 1851 Outpost Drive, where he resided until his death on January 1, 1950.

De Lario’s lush, refined designs for Hollywoodland, though few, still radiate sophistication and glamour today, providing a rich patina of substance and history for the classic Hollywood hills neighborhood.

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Dick Van Dyke portrayed Albert Kothe in the short film The Caretaker 3D.

German immigrant Albert Karl Heindrich Kothe’s work is not as glamorous or respected as that of De Lario, but it perhaps earned more name recognition. While serving as handyman and chauffeur for the real estate tract in the 1920s and 1930s, Kothe also spent his time replacing burned-out light bulbs and fallen galvanized metal sheets from the gigantic billboard spelling out the development’s name, Hollywoodland, giving him a place in history.

Born October 18, 1893, in Hamburg, Kothe had an eighth grade education and worked in menial jobs until deciding to immigrate to the United States in 1915, somehow escaping World War I. Traveling solo across the Atlantic, Kothe arrived first in Santa Rosa, Mexico, before traveling by boat to Portland, Oregon, arriving June 18, 1915. He applied for United States naturalization on August 24, 1916 in Montana, before eventually arriving in Los Angeles.

By the mid-1920s, Kothe began working at the Hollywoodland development as a jack-of-all trades, serving as handyman, pumpman, chauffeur, caretaker and carpenter, per census records and city directory listings. For a time, he bachelor drove the Hollywoodland jitney, transporting residents to and from their homes to the tract’s entrance where they could board city buses. Tall tales claim that Kothe became inebriated one night and drove the Hollywoodland Ford into the back of the Hollywoodland Sign but this would be impossible. The road to the top of the hill lies above and behind the Hollywoodland sign approximately a steep 50 yards away.

Kothe later told local newspapers that he climbed ladders at least once a week replacing burnt out 20 watt light bulbs that ringed each letter of the massive sign, illuminating and spelling out the word “Hollywoodland” at night. By 1933, however, the tract refused to maintain the crumbly, poorly constructed Hollywoodland Sign, allowing light bulbs to burn out and vandals to steal or destroy what remained. In 2010, actor Dick Van Dyke brought fame to Kothe by starring as the popular handyman in a short film titled “The Caretaker 3D.”

Over the years, Kothe listed a variety of Hollywoodland addresses as his residence, including 2690 N. Beachwood Drive and 3200 N. Beachwood Driver, not in a shack behind the sign, another urban legend associated with the neighborhood and its world famous icon. 3200 N. Beachwood perhaps served as the residence for the Hollywoodland stables manager or the construction foreman, eventually burning down in the 1961 fire that took over eight homes in the tract, and seriously damaged 24 others. Kothe’s 1942 draft card listed Hollywoodland top salesman Gilbert A. Miller as his next of kin.

Kothe continued living in the Hollywoodland community the rest of his days, occupying an apartment in the Beachwood Village complex designed by De Lario himself, dying in 1974.

Like much of the early history of the development and its world-famous iconic sign, many details of De Lario’s and Kothe’s lives remain shrouded in mystery, allowing fact and fantasy to merge into a more poetic, Hollywood version of truth. These two men, opposites in many ways, contributed much to the atmospheric beauty of Hollywoodland, raising it from mere housing development to stuff of legend.

One of the first film studios constructed for use solely by a female performer, the Mabel Normand Studio still stands strong at the triangle intersection of Fountain Avenue, Bates Avenue, and Effie Street in East Hollywood, more than 100 years old. Although 4319 Effie St. was originally constructed as the Mabel Normand Studio, it soon evolved into a headquarters for various facets of entertainment production, an excellent example of how vintage structures can be adaptively reused for similar purposes. Mimicking the studio’s very triangular site, many of the building’s inhabitants possess connections with others.

Gaining recognition first as a gorgeous model for such illustrators as Charles Dana Gibson, vivacious Mabel Normand set the world on fire with her charismatic personality and doe eyed beauty as one of the first female superstar film comediennes and directors. First working as an extra in Kalem and later Biograph Film Company shorts, Normand found more success in a series of comic films as “Betty” before returning to Biograph.

This time, Normand struck gold at her old company after pairing with frenetic Canadian comedian Mack Sennett. Their obvious chemistry and mischievous nature cemented their stardom, helping spark Sennett’s formation of Keystone Comedies and her reputation as slapstick queen “Madcap Mabel.” Sennett and Normand’s collegial bond evolved into that of close friends and lovers, with the beautiful Mabel serving as Sennett’s muse.

Normand’s creativity and initiative expanded at Keystone, with the actress soon writing as well as directing her own films, a major component of the Fun Factory’s success. The daring young woman performed her own stunts and stood her ground against such comic heavyweights and co-stars as Charlie Chaplin and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle,” giving as good as she got.

In 1915, Normand and Sennett’s romance seemed to grow more serious, and the couple supposedly became engaged. Happiness later gave way to tragedy, however, as Normand discovered Sennett cheating, breaking off their engagement at a time when she began experiencing health issues, perhaps in relation to the breakup.

Stories diverge at this point regarding the construction of the studio and Normand’s career direction, perfect for the make-believe world of film production. Perhaps as penance, Sennett purchased the Effie Street site as a gift to Normand, with Brent Walker stating in his book “Mack Sennett’s fun Factory” that Sennett announced the formation of the Mabel Normand Feature Film Co. on May 1, 1916. Later stories also claimed that Sennett appointed his assistant business manager Harry Kerr as business manager at the Normand plant, and that production would be under Sennett’s supervision. In fact, a ramshackle wooden barn-like structure arose at the site, a cavernous barn perfect for the invention of dreams.

But another strong story exists for the studio’s creation. The March 29, 1916 Los Angeles Times announced that Normand had departed her exclusive contract with the Sennett company and instead signed a contract with Triangle allowing her the opportunity to work with its three major directors – D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, and Sennett and make five-reel comedy-dramas, after a strenuous illness forced her to take a break from work. This three year contract would pay her $1,500 a week, or $78,000 per year, affording Normand the opportunity to fulfill her “yearning for dramatic film roles” and to form her own company, the Mabel Normand Feature Film Co. Film Fun magazine said she would immediately begin work on her “comedy-drama pictures, under the direction of Thomas Ince” at the brand new facility on its own four-acre tract. She told Motion Picture magazine that everything had been designed to her specifications with many feminine touches.

Construction proceeded on the gigantic shell of a building as Normand hired a full-time staff to assist her in film production. The April 22, 1916 issue of Southwest Contractor stated the Mabel Normand Feature Film Co. had pulled permits for the construction of a 20 by 30 foot carpentry shop at the site, and Motion Picture News announced in May that it possessed a 60 by 100 foot stage and 10 dressing rooms, with offices, scene docks, and property rooms to be constructed. Over the next several months, directors and actors would come and go as pre-production work commenced on a comedic feature later known as Mickey, an ultimately tumultuous production delayed by Normand’s health issues, casting indecisions, and creative differences.

Ending her employment totally with Sennett and Triangle, Normand moved on to Goldwyn in 1917 as Mickey’s production and completion dragged on interminably. The studio was now up for grabs, an opportunity for wily producer Thomas Ince to set up William S. Hart with his own studio.

After signing a lucrative new deal with Paramount’s Artcraft brand to produce eight to ten pictures a year, Ince began production at the Famous Players Lasky lot at Selma and Vine realizing the need for more space in order to finish all his required product. Ince leased the former Selig Edendale Studio on Glendale Boulevard and then leased the Normand Studio in July 1917, with Motion Picture News stating that he renamed it the William S. Hart Studio in October after a remodeling. Trades on July 25 reported that Hart and Ince incorporated William S. Hart Productions, Inc. for $1 million in Delaware

Hart employed the Bates Avenue studio to produce interiors for his gripping films, mostly westerns. Publicity noted that Hart maintained no standing sets or backdrops, building each new set as realistically as possible and using them only once before they were disassembled in order to reuse wood. The set for his second Artcraft film, a prison set, was supposedly the largest set ever constructed on the West Coast at the time.

By 1923, Hart moved his film operations, putting the studio now under the address 1215 Bates Ave. on the market. From this point forward, companies with a tangential interest in filmmaking but helping theatrical companies concoct fantasies enthralling audiences would occupy the site, drawn to the studio by its high ceilings and empty space.

The Edwin H. Flagg Scenic Studio replaced Hart’s company at the location. Incorporated by Flagg for $50,000 in 1909, the company produced sets, backdrops, and screen curtains for stage productions up and down the West Coast as well as devising prologues. In addition, Flagg designed and his company exclusively developed scenics for all Pantages circuit theaters in 1913. Flagg’s company actually created the Hawaiian prologue that preceded screenings of Normand’s “Mickey” at the Los Angeles’ Kinema Theatre. From 1923 to 1927, Flagg and staff devised designs for such upscale theaters as the Criterion, Mason, and California in downtown Los Angeles. The company even featured Flagg in one of its advertisements underscoring his importance in the theatrical world.

Flagg died September 20, 1927, after suffering for three months from poisoning after an operation to remove cancerous growths in his abdomen, shutting down his company. Friend and colleague Charles F. Thompson and his self-named company replaced the Flagg Studio at the site, carrying on Flagg’s work conceiving and producing scenic backdrops and curtains for theatrical presentations. Thompson entered the same scenic field in 1894, incorporating in 1909 with Flagg as actual owner but operating under Thompson’s own name. Thompson would later open similar branches in Chicago and New York which he owned.

Los Angeles Scenic Studios, which created backdrops for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics among other entertainment clients, operated the location until February 14, 1940, when props, sets, furniture, tools, and machines were auctioned off to settle debts. By 1941, Scenic Productions Inc. operated in the updated facility, also producing scenic backdrops for the Civic Light Opera, theaters, and other shows as well as models, curtains, and scenery. Curran Scenic Studio is listed as owner by 1946, designing and producing huge, elaborate backgrounds for live shows as well as film and television productions, advertising their wares in issues of Production Design magazine. Bates Lighting Co. owned the studio in 1971.

Updated in 2013 by the current owner, the studio now operates under the name Mack Sennett Studios, who never shot a frame of film at the location. Well maintained and operated, the studio still serves the entertainment industry 106 years after completion. Echoes of the blossoming early silent film field still reverberate in the giant, active space.

A postcard showing Sid Grauman and the Egyptian Theater, listed on EBay.

On Oct. 18, Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre turned 100 years old. Built and operated by legendary showman Sid Grauman, the spectacular theater introduced major Hollywood premieres and radio broadcasts as it became a mecca of entertainment for Southern California. The successful theater demonstrated the business and creative acumen of the shrewd exhibitor as he formed the template of the Hollywood premiere and its publicity possibilities by showcasing and expanding his creative genius.

Grauman absorbed showmanship from his theater manager father. Vaudeville’s obit called him “the father of continuous vaudeville…the first showman to establish himself after the great fire; also the first showman to adopt the large, luxurious theater for pictures.”

The 1926 opening of Don Juan at the Egyptian, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Grauman synthesized previous practices and techniques as he broadened the definition of film exhibition at his lavish Egyptian Theatre, employing prologues, orchestra, publicity at openings, and other special trappings virtually replicating all that he had practiced before.

Born March 17, 1879, in Indianapolis, Indiana to David and Rosa Goldsmith Grauman, Grauman spent most of his formative years in Kansas City, where his father served as a railroad and then steamship ticket broker and real estate salesman. Perhaps still struggling, father and son attempted to make it rich in mining at Dawson City, Alaska, in 1898 after the great gold rush there. Facing failure and learning a lesson about how lonely people would pay handsomely for entertainment, the family ended up in San Francisco with David once again serving as a ticket broker for the Seattle and Cape Nome Transportation Co. through the end of 1899 before the men determined to achieve their fortunes owning and managing theaters.

The elder Grauman opened the Lyceum Theatre in 1899, offering high-class vaudeville at low prices with outstanding showmanship drawing crowds. His son even devised entertainment for San Jose’s Unique Theatre, where a young Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle gained popularity, learning to mix high and low entertainment appealing to audiences. The family later opened the Unique and Novelty Theatres expanding on their initial ideas.

Sid Grauman sold the family’s Unique and Novelty Theatres in 1905 to move east and operate theaters in Scranton, Penn., and New York City, where he intended to book talent as well. Early in 1906 after disappointing results, Grauman returned to the city by the Bay to produce high-quality entertainment in the family theaters.

Like the unsinkable Molly Brown, nothing stood in the Graumans’ way. After the great 1906 earthquake and fire, father and son opened the National Tent Show Theatre on May 28, with shows combining high-class vaudeville and moving pictures and widely popular with devastated people trying to move forward. Taking over from his dad, Sid Grauman worked as managing director devising entertaining programs to lure paying audiences, combining live variety acts with short films.

A humorous look at the Egyptian in the Los Angeles Express.

Over the next decade, the family opened the lavish Imperial Theatre in 1909 decorated in what was called the Viennese style, giving an aura of class and respectability in its limited daily programs. They later opened the more luxurious Empress Theatre which shimmered like the show queen she was, with the largest electronic billboard for its time. It featured female ushers, a large orchestra offering concerts, large displays on the sidewalk, creative publicity techniques, red carpet lining the floors, establishing Sid as an imaginative and high class showman blending popular culture with fantastic entertainment that he would enlarge and perfect after arriving in Los Angeles. Starting with variety performers to introduce moving pictures, Grauman soon evolved programming highlighting themes, synergizing entertainment, and sometimes creating documentaries to further define subjects.

Sid Grauman soon devised the “Underground Chinatown” show for the massive Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, an immersive, entertaining show ahead of its time creating an exotic Chinese atmosphere, if not exactly what would be considered good taste today. Expanding their horizons, the family moved to the growing film capital of Los Angeles to construct show palaces, opening the luxurious Million Dollar Theatre in 1918 which primarily featured what would be called blockbusters or popular pictures today.

Grauman introduced artistic and atmospheric prologues enlarging on film themes or offering imaginative escape preceding the movie feature. Further expanding his policies of providing maximum entertainment at an affordable price, Grauman featured large displays on the the outdoor sidewalk, elegantly coiffed and shapely showgirls and cast members providing themed entertainment, and high-class performance of more classic arts like opera and classical music. While successful, Grauman always worked to grow his talents and opportunities as a top class producer of entertainment.

May 28, 1920, the Hollywood Citizen News trumpeted Grauman’s purchase of land at 6718 Hollywood Blvd. from T.B. Marshall to construct a first-class film theater, “as a picture palace, unique in interior and exterior appointments, and destined artistically to crown the development artistically of the domain of the Southwest in filmland.” Grauman determined to become the lead exhibitor in the new film capital, lured by real estate man Charles E. Toberman looking to make Hollywood a city of the first class.

The paper reported Grauman’s announcement that the theater would operate as a “national pre-release establishment,” which they stated as “another step toward making Los Angeles the capital of the exhibiting realm, with Hollywood offering the greatest opportunities to the public.” Grauman described it as “the most elegant of the type,” with oriental architecture predominating along with gardens, electric fountains, statuary, and a long entrance and forecourt from the street, creating a promenade. Like the Million Dollar, the theater would host a 35 piece orchestra along with a program containing “prologue, special stage acts, female ushers, short films and orchestra numbers,” along with Wurlitzer organ.

Stories the next month reported Meyer and Holler as architects and their Milwaukee Building Company as contractors for the proposed $450,000 theater. Perhaps Grauman faced fundraising issues, as it was October before stories declared construction would begin shortly, with the theater, now “Spanish type, with an oriental influence,” to feature a reflecting pool in the courtyard. Spring 1921 stories finally declared the official groundbreaking date of Saturday, May 7 at 2 p.m. for the $600,000 2000-seat playhouse. Special amenities would include men’s smoking rooms, children’s nurseries and women’s lounges.

By Oct. 18 opening day, newspapers described that soft colors in Egyptian hieroglyphic motif would decorate the first-run theater inside and out, with both heating system and air cooling system installed. The 150-foot-long tiled entrance court would feature a fountain and miniature shops on one side. Ahead of its time in promoting Egyptian style architecture and up to date with earthquake standards of the period, the Egyptian featured a sphinx and decorative busts filling the lobby and walls, with a deep red carpet with hieroglyphic borders covered the lobby. An opening spread called the ceiling as “a dome of a celestial sky..set with the myriads of blazing jewels of the heavens, in pure gold, over with radiates a colossal sunburst of golden iridescent colorful rays…” Twenty doors “of green-gold bronze” opened from the forecourt into the lobby.

Grauman would operate his Hollywood Egyptian theater more as a legitimate stage enterprise, with only two shows daily and all seats reserved, with prices ranging from 50 cents to $1 at the matinee and from 75 cents to $1.50 in the evening, similar to their previous management of theater programs. Each screening would open with an elaborate prologue with up to 100 performers and films would be accompanied by a large orchestra with furnishings decorated in “green bronze, copper and gold,”providing an elegant touch. Usherettes in Egyptian costumes seated guests and costumed guards stood watch on the roof. Larger than life exhibits and displays filled the forecourt of the theater during the full run of each special, more elaborate than any he had devised before. These lush details demonstrate Grauman’s intention to give audiences great value for their money, with the show truly starting on the sidewalk.

Grauman told The Evening Express on Oct. 14 that his mother “knew how to add harmony to the psychic dreams of her husband and bring forth their perfection of art through the medium of her son’s mind and its accomplishments.” He hoped to maintain her high quality, vowing that “the chief purpose of his life is to translate into accomplishment the inspiration he has received from those who gave him life.” The creative genius provided his special touch, designing each prologue with the same quality and attention to detail as any top Broadway production.

Thousands watched as the exotic $800,000 Egyptian Theatre opened Oct. 18 to a full house of 2,000 with Douglas Fairbanks’ romantic spectacle Robin Hood and film director Fred Niblo serving as master of ceremonies before speeches by Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer, writer Rupert Hughes, Cecil B. DeMille, Jesse Lasky and Charlie Chaplin. Fairbanks and his superstar wife Mary Pickford were unable to attend, but virtually every other cast member appeared, performing in the Notthingham Castle Pageant wearing their original costumes from the film after a selection of arias from Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida.

Renowned violinist and composer Jan Sofer served as first director and conductor of the Egyptian orchestra, helping introduce middle-class audiences to high-brow symphonic music. Frederick Burr Scholl acted as first organist on the theater’s massive Wurlitzer. Renowned choreographers Fanchon and Marco shaped many of the dances in Grauman’s over-the-top prologues, and such gifted designers as Erte and Adrian designed costumes once each for these spectaculars. Unfortunately, the projectionists, perhaps the true stars of the exhibition business, discovered that entering the projection booth was perhaps an afterthought, as they were forced to enter it from the roof.

Only five weeks after opening, Grauman sold half-interest in the theater to West Coast Theatres, Inc., an exhibition company, while the theater maintained his name as branding symbol to attract audiences. Grauman perhaps actually needed to sell part of his interest in order to pay back bank loans, as a copy of a syndicate funding letter with Cecil B. DeMille from 1920 states that Grauman would pay off any construction costs exceeding $250,000. One of the first to truly understand the importance of establishing a brand of quality and culture, Grauman’s name often headlined theaters for a while after he sold them off to management companies and moved on to devise ever more elaborate dreams.

Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre demonstrated Hollywood’s ascension as the United States’ moviemaking capital, with the theater royally hosting epics by the industry’s top stars in the 1920s, when Hollywood Boulevard served as the West Coast version of New York’s Fifth Avenue. The Egyptian’s opening night could logically be described as Hollywood’s first premiere, with the lavish premiere night spectacular for The Big Parade in 1925 actually serving as the moviemaking capital’s official first premiere, even broadcast over the radio.

Grauman truly became Hollywood’s showman with the opening of his Egyptian Theatre, gaining prestige and power in the film town that would assist in the creation of his masterpiece, the Chinese Theatre and his participation in the building of the Roosevelt Hotel. An expert player in promoting both himself and his theaters, Grauman inaugurated publicity practices followed to this day. Grauman demonstrated the “show” of show business in luring customers to film theaters, while constructing an auditorium that remains both showplace and perfect screening room.

The Studio Club in Photoplay, 1917.

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

T he advent of the 20^th century offered the possibility of more freedom and opportunity for women. For decades, women had advocated for the right to vote, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Others clamored for more work opportunities beyond teaching, librarian, and secretarial positions.

The relatively new medium of motion pictures also tantalized audiences with many new possibilities beyond their hometowns: exciting new cities, novel hobbies and recreations, and modern employment opportunities. In fact, many people considered the growing film industry itself an excellent field to try their luck, especially movie-struck, naïve young women.

ALSO BY MARY MALLORY
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Innocent young girls descended on Hollywood in the mid-teens from Midwestern farming communities, small Southern towns and large cities, hoping to be discovered by film folks. For the first time, many young women independently traveled west to California with their meager savings seeking out opportunity in glamorous Hollywood. As their money slowly dwindled, many hung around libraries and other respectable locations.

Mrs. Eleanor Jones of the Hollywood Public Library began noticing many young women staying until closing time. Many had nowhere to go and no friends or family to spend time or live with. Jones began befriending them and trying to help them. A young girl whom Mrs. Jones regularly noticed sitting alone in the library disappeared one day, and then reappeared more than a month later. When Jones asked where she had been, she replied that she had spent a month in the hospital with no visitors. Soon after, as she realized that she had no prospects in Hollywood, she returned home.

Jones approached Mrs. W. Richmond, Mrs. William De Mille and Lois Weber and they started a drama club in the library called the Hollywood Studio Club. When the Young Women’s Christian Assn. heard about the club, it offered a dancing teacher, with many new classes quickly added. Attendance soon outgrew the small space. The large attendance convinced local businessmen to advance $1,500 for a year’s rental on a large two-story Colonial building at 6129 Carlos Ave., the former home of the Hollywood Military Academy, as a clubhouse offering classes and get-together opportunities. Any girl connected with the film industry could join as a member and take classes, but when a few of the young women mentioned that they had no place to live, they were invited in.

In 1916, the YWCA International Institute leased the home, and the Hollywood Studio Club officially became a residence hall with 80 paid members, with many more hoping to get in. The Nov. 14, 1916, Moving Picture World noted in an article that it was the third YWCA Club home for girls after ones in New York and Paris, and the “only one in existence for motion picture girls.”

Celebrities such as Lois Weber, Dorothy Davenport, and Tsuru Aoki, Mrs. Sessue Hayakawa, visited on Sundays, and studios held regular teas for the girls. Many classes were offered beyond acting and dancing, including scenario writing, makeup, pantomime, gymnastics and first aid. Girls could enjoy the large gardens, sitting on the front porch or welcoming guests.

T he YWCA quickly struggled to pay the bills. It offered dances on Friday nights with young men welcomed to attend. Entertainers and studios presented theatrical productions, musical performances and other fundraisers. In December 1916, the Lasky Feature Play Co. players presented the first fundraising performance, giving many more over the years. Lasky players Helen Jerome Eddy, a former resident, Lillian Leighton, Laurence Tibbett, Mabel Van Buren, Clarence Geldart and George Hackathorne presented “The Tragedy of Nan” in February 1918 in the building’s auditorium. A live nativity was presented Dec. 22, 1919, in an amphitheatre arranged on the front lawn, with Frank Keenan as narrator, Eddy as Mary, Walter Long as Herod, and Lionel Belmore as one of the Wise Men.

Film journalist Rob Wagner in his 1918 book “Film Folk; Closeups of the Men, Women and Children Who Make the Movies,” spoke with an industry leader who called the Hollywood Studio Club a “godsend to the kids who have no place to go except to bat round the town. We have teas, garden parties, studio dances, and all kinds of stunts that bring the bunch together, and if a girl gets down on her luck, she can stay at the club until she lands on her feet again.”

The local YWCA approached studios and film folk like Mary Pickford for help in purchasing the property in 1919 to provide additional living space. In newspaper stories, residents mentioned that it was basically a sorority with film atmosphere, giving them a sense of home life, protection and assistance. There were few rules beyond living and acting with good taste and manners. Girls paid membership fees of $5, $10, $25, $50 and $100, allowing them a place to live and access to the dining room, gymnasium, classes and the like. The club offered additional classes as well: art, embroidery, exercise, remodeling clothes and dramatics, along with the Sunday teas, monthly dances, and camping and beach trips.

During these early years, actresses such as Helen Jerome Eddy, Carmel Myers, Mildred Harris, Marjorie Daw and Louise Huff lived at the club, along with writer Sarah Mason and Paramount secretary Anne Bauchens.

Demand quickly outgrew the space, and by 1923 a group led by Mrs. Cecil B. DeMille, Mrs. Jesse Lasky, Mrs. Charles Christie and others bought property from Seward Cole at 1215 Lodi Place and Lexington Avenue on which to erect a new home at a cost of $150,000. Famed Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan designed a building along “Spanish, Italian and French lines, with some of the warm colors of the Moorish,” with central patio, library, two reception rooms, private dining room, large dining room, stage, practice rooms, writing and makeup rooms, and 66 single and double bedrooms with their own lavatories.

The YWCA sold the Carlos Avenue property to St. Stephens Episcopal Church for use as a parish hall to buy the Lodi Place property and began a fund drive to construct the new building. They also sought pledges for furniture, equipment and other necessities.

During the next two years, every studio donated funds. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson and Jackie Coogan gave $1,000 each, Florence Vidor, Lucien Littlefield, Jesse Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, Will Hays and others gave large sums, Charles Ray allowed paid tours of the Mayflower reproduction at his new studio benefiting the club, and the gate from a special performance of “Robin Hood” at the Egyptian Theatre would benefit the club. Norma Talmadge donated the last $5,000 to reach the campaign target.

The YWCA held a grand dedication May 7, 1926, of the lush new facility, with each bedroom named for a contributor. The building quickly overflowed with residents; some were actresses, but most were affiliated with the motion picture industry in support or behind the scenes roles. An average of 93 lived in the 105-capacity home at one time. Most girls stayed for approximately six months, and many received assistance while unemployed.

Residents in the 1920s included future writer Ayn Rand, along with actresses Mae Busch, Janet Gaynor and Zasu Pitts.

Rates were lowered in 1932 during the Depression, from $13 a week to $7 a week for women ages 18-35. A June 11, 1932, ad in the Hollywood Filmograph noted, “Free use of lounge, patio, library, piano, radio, laundry, typewriter, and sewing machine.”

During World War II, the girls employed the empty lot next door for the “back-to-the farm” movement, raising fruit and vegetables they sold for funds to buy the property, aided by donations from Louis B. Mayer, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, George Cukor and Harry Warner. In May 1944, the USO constructed a building housing 1,000 servicewomen, operated as a guesthouse by the Hollywood Studio Club.

Costs continued rising after the war, with the YWCA needing help paying the bills in 1947. Donations coming from Joseph Schenck, Mae West, Joseph von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch, Mitchell Leisen and Budd Schulberg, among others, helped ease the burden. Thus began a several decade fight to earn enough money to keep the facility open. Former residents formed an alumni group in 1953 to help support the club, holding fundraisers and offering support.

Changing times and mores added financial pressures to the Hollywood Studio Club, with young women free to live independently and come and go as they pleased. Extramarital sex became more accepted. Governmental assistance and unemployment became available.

Though the club struggled financially, waves of girls continued flooding the building. Future celebrity residents included actresses Maureen O’Sullivan, Gail Patrick, Linda Darnell, Donna Reed, Evelyn Keyes, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Marie Windsor, Barbara Britton, Barbara Hale, Janet Blair, Dorothy Malone, Barbara Rush, Gale Storm, Rita Moreno, Nancy Kwan, Barbara Eden, Donna Douglas, Yvonne Craig, and Ann B. Davis, along with editor Dede Allen.

By 1970, the YWCA considered selling the Hollywood Studio Club, but residents fought to save it by holding fundraisers, asking for pledges, and the like. The YWCA allowed paying groups to hold meetings and classes in the rooms. It opened a small thrift shop to sell items. Former resident Rosemary Breckler wrote a March 3, 1975, letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times, speaking to how the building nourished young women. “The thing I remember most is the wonderful feeling we had of being cherished, loved, protected, guided, and assisted in our aspirations.”

After the club closed in 1976, the YWCA put some furnishings up for auction with Sotheby Parke Bernet in July 1977, and sold others in its thrift shop. In 1982, it donated some materials from the club to Cal State Northridge.

The lovely building stands forlornly at 1215 Lodi Place, ready to welcome eager new Hollywood residents.

The Christmas House in Boyle Heights, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Note: This is an encore post from 2019.

Long before the inauguration of Instagram and trying to win social media by posting the most elaborate or flashy photo, George G. Skinner designed a homespun holiday light installation in the late 1930s meant as a simple opportunity to enjoy happy times and pleasures with friends and family. A popular holiday destination in Los Angeles similar to Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena, the Christmas House at 919 S. Mathews St. perhaps inspired later fancy holiday light displays throughout Southern California.

Born in Canada in 1912, George Skinner found himself in Los Angeles when his father Albert abandoned the family and took his son with him to sunny Southern California in 1920. The teenager developed a strong bond with his father, enjoying camping and beach trips. Though he yearned for his family, he remained with his dad, who told George that the warm weather better suited his health.

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is available at Amazon and at local bookstores.

Jean Portland, left, and Windy Gilmore, in bathing suit, play in “snow” after a fire damaged the Christmas House in 1938, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

George thrived. In 1934 he was about to graduate from business school and hoped to propose to his girlfriend. While swimming laps at the Los Angeles City College pool May 22, 1934, George suddenly lost feeling in his arms and legs. Two strong athletes rescued him from the pool as he sank toward the bottom.

Rushed to Los Angeles County General Hospital, Skinner would spend two years encased in a huge, casket-like 650-pound iron lung to recover from polio.  Friends and neighbors visited often, showering him with cookies, candy, letters, cards and books. Skinner vowed to one day repay these people for their kind deeds.

Inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also had polio, Skinner devoted himself to getting better. In one of his fireside chats, Roosevelt mentioned hydrotherapy and the healing waters of Warm Springs, Georgia. George yearned to try it, but Los Angeles County Hospital only offered hydrotherapy in its pool freely to those under 21. George received the treatment after writing a letter to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with the help of a nurse, as long as he could pay whenever he could.

In May 1936, Skinner finally went home to the tiny white bungalow with its white picket fence and small porch, wearing a body brace on his upper body and steel braces on both legs, using canes to aid his mobility. Tool and die maker father Albert struggled to support his son, but found enough money to construct a simple backyard gym to help him gain strength.

The Christmas House grew out of George’s dreams during his two year stay at the hospital, when he imagined Christmas in Canada with his far away mother, who taught him everything about the true holiday spirit. Good at design and construction, Skinner hoped to entertain and enthrall children, and thank his neighbors for their generous and kind support of him. He sincerely aspired to grace others with a little bit of sunshine just as he had been blessed. Working on his proposed design kept his mind occupied, a chance to escape from Depression blues.

That first year, 1936, George creatively devised a glittering light display through simple but smart ways. Per his daughter’s book, “The Christmas House,” George figured out that mirrors would increase the twinkly light display, freezing steam would make icicles to hang from the rooftop, painting cereal flakes white could replicate snow, and playing 78s of Christmas carols on the family record player would provide a little musical ambiance which people could sing along with.

George’s giving attitude and boundless energy inspired businesses and even movie studios to lend costumes or props or even make a small donation. Snow shipped in from Utah was dumped on the front lawn and when it melted, ingenious George dressed up his cereal flakes with white spray paint to serve as snow. Father Albert constructed a Santa figure for the roof and even dressed up as Santa to surprise guests, aided by a wishing well equipped with recording equipment and microphone.

Members of the Women’s American Legion Sunrise Post 370 pulled together his designs and watered the 12 eight-foot tall live trees inside as well as making hot chocolate to share with the many visitors.

The first time Albert flipped the switch turning on the lights, the fuses blew from overload. George realized they were drawing twice the electricity provided by the power company. Telephoning the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, George mentioned that a reporter from the Herald-Express was coming to cover the Christmas House opening. The supervisor offered to loan him an emergency generator.

Radio stations and newspapers like the Los Angeles Times ran stories about the enthusiastic young man and his sweet cause, inspiring bumper to bumper traffic from admiring gawkers. The December 21, 1936, Los Angeles Times reported on Skinner’s display, noting that two elaborately lighted and decorated Christmas trees stood on the front lawn. The Times stated, “The snow effect on the roof is made of cotton batting; the icicles are covered strips of rubber and the flake snow in the yard is the chemical kind used by motion picture studios.” The stories drew tens of thousands of marveling Angelenos, creating what might be the first “Happiest place on earth.”

In 1937, papers announced that 265 carolers would serenade guests and serve homemade pastries with milk and hot apple cider. Eight life-size reindeer towing Santa’s sleigh graced the roof and even more decorations and costumes were loaned by businesses and studios. The Santa Rosa Republican on December 25, 1937 ran a photo feature, noting that decorations included 150 pounds of artificial snow, 304 feet of tinsel, 250 pounds of cotton, and more than 350 electric lights adding sparkly charm to the house. Papers in 1938 estimated that over 80,000 children toured the exhibit.

George spent the year of 1938 getting ready for the next big show, focusing on a Snow White theme to coincide with the Walt Disney Company’s animated feature released that year. Decorations included a wishing well, cascading waterfall, sparkling Christmas lights, and replicas of Snow White’s cottage, all complementing the 30 Douglas firs trucked from Tahoe inside the house. Skinner’s passion and enthusiasm continued to inspire business owners to donate goods and services, with even the Los Angeles Department of Power and Light paying the family’s light bill.

On December 8, a fire causing $10,000 worth of damage swept through the bungalow, resulting from faulty wiring. The interior was badly damaged, as well as half of the display. Heartbreakingly, the family lacked insurance. The December 15 Los Angeles Times reported the 16 person crew, 12 women and four men, began reconstructing the site after spending six months building props and six weeks getting everything ready. The cleaned up site, with damaged areas hidden under fake snow and tinsel, opened to the public on December 19, with papers later estimating that over 100,000 visited Christmas House that year.

On May 17, 1939, Joe Seewerker and Charles Owens wrote and illustrated a column about the Christmas House and its demise for the Times, but stating that a stray cigarette caused the fire. They reported that as the family worked in the backyard, just hours from opening, a man tired of waiting stepped over the ropes preventing entry and ushered his wife and daughter into the home. When he carelessly threw away a cigarette, it landed on one of the 30 live trees inside the home, setting it ablaze.

George married Pearl Majoros in 1942, moving out of the Mathews Street home, which was eventually demolished. The Skinners moved to Hollywood by the late 1940s, with George working as a sound engineer and later designer at movie studios. After the birth of his daughters, Skinner and his wife even devised a shimmering display for their Curson Avenue home.

Other areas of Southern California began displaying elaborate Christmas lights, from the Griffith Park Light Display to the boat parade at Naples to neighborhoods like Upper Hastings Ranch in Pasadena and Candy Cane Lane in the San Fernando Valley. Soon these decorations became a way to bedazzle crowds and outdo neighbors rather than a sincere effort to enjoy the holiday spirit.

Daughter Georja collected the stories on her father’s Christmas House for her 2005 book, hoping to inspire readers with her father’s indomitable spirit. His work pulling together the holiday house healed his life emotionally and spiritually. In the concluding paragraph of her book, Skinner states, ”My hope is that the story of the Christmas House might help others find a way to hold on to and strive for whatever they believe in, no matter how impossible their goals might seem.” Focus on possibilities, not insurmountable obstacles. Following George Skinner’s maxim, “Dream big. Otherwise, why bother?”

Merry Christmas!

A landmark both as one of the first buildings in the original Cahuenga Valley area known as Colegrove and for its dramatic appearance looming over the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Cahuenga Avenue, what is now the L.A. Security Storage Building still serves as one of Hollywood’s major storage facilities 100 years after construction. The building stands over what was once Buster Keaton’s studio and a prominent entertainment district, demonstrating the durability of Hollywood and its connection to film and other popular entertainment.

The site occupies what was originally part of Rancho La Brea, 4444 acres given by Mexican governor Jose Maria de Echeandia in 1828 to Antonio Jose Rocha and Nemesio Dominguez. Forced to defend and file claims to the land, Jose Jorge Rocha deeded the rancho land to Henry Hancock, the family’s surveyor and defender, in 1860. Hancock and family later subdivided and sold the property, with former Republican Sen. Cornelius Cole purchasing 500 acres in 1880 and establishing what would become known as Colegrove.

The storage building appears in the background of this scene (upper left corner) from Buster Keaton’s The Balloonatic.

Cole gradually sold off land to create his small community, which gained its name after the erection of its post office. Many purchasers were Americans looking for a new start, moving west from the American heartland, looking to farm as they had back home. The Cahuenga Valley in which Colegrove sat featured rich, fertile land in what was known as the frostless belt. Crops such as melons, nuts, and particularly citrus grew well. Most of the farmers and ranchers turned to citrus, mostly lemons, thanks to its successful growth.

As more turned to the profitable crop, the community required a packing house to grade, cure, and pack lemons. Turning to the Lemon Growers’ Exchange of Ontario and its’ bylaws and constitution, the farmers decided to form their own organization following these documents. On August 24, 1895, the group adopted the name Cahuenga Lemon Exchange in which to do business.

An artist’s rendering, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 21, 1921.

Cahuenga Valley residents of Colegrove met September 19 of that year to officially vote on organizing the venture “to greatly promote the general prosperity of the charming suburb of the Los Angeles city,” as the September 22, 1896, Los Angeles Herald stated. After several meetings to discuss how to organize and operate, the group officially voted to incorporate the group, with E.C. Harrington, Cole, P. G.Durly, F. M Lyon and Dr. Thomas Davidson voted as directors.

Filing their article of incorporation on December 3, 1896, the group turned to raising $20,000 in capital on which to operate. Cole sold them part of his subdivision for $300 on February 17, 1897, and the group constructed a packing house at what is now Santa Monica Boulevard and Cahuenga Avenue. The 70-member group shipped 40 railroad car loads of lemons in 1900. In 1901, the organization shipped 16 railroad car loads of lemons, over 4 million pounds for sale around the country. In 1905, the busy packing house employed 20 to 75 men, over ten percent of the 500-resident community.

By the 1910s, small film studios arose in the area, particularly the Mutual Film Corporation, organized in March 1912 on the block just south of the building. Charlie Chaplin produced films out of the studio as the Lone Star Film Corporation in 1916 and 1917. Keaton ran his self-named company here at Eleanor Avenue and Lillian Way beginning in 1922. During those early months, the packing house appeared in the background of his two-reel short films The Scarecrow in 1920 and The Goat in 1921.

Hollywood and surrounding areas like Colegrove grew in population in the 1910s and 1920s as the silent film industry moved west from Fort Lee, N.J., to establish headquarters, and home construction boomed. With increasing construction, more storage space was required by businesses and residents. Large storage facilities were erected to handle these materials.

Hollywood Citizen News, April 22, 1925.

Businessman A. J. Clark formed Premier Fireproof Storage and purchased the land at Santa Monica and Cahuenga to construct a large facility. Pulling the first permit April 27, 1922, for 6372 Santa Monica Blvd., Clark hired architect Edward T. Flaherty to design a six-story concrete building valued at $80,000. Employing reinforced concrete, brick, and terra cotta, the facility has 150 tons of steel to help reinforce the 13-inch thick walls. The building featured floors dedicated to storing pianos, automobiles, rugs, and furniture, along with cold storage to hold furs, and four stores would occupy the first floor.

Looming over the surrounding community at six stories, the building also featured two gigantic electric Seth Thomas clocks, giving it the name “The House With the Clock” in advertising. The dials measured 16 feet in diameter, the minute hand stretched eight feet and weighed 750 pounds. It never struck the hour to keep neighbors happy. The building appears in the background of a scene in Keaton’s The Balloonatic.

Quickly filling up space, the company pulled permits in December 1924 to add another six-story building to the east which would adjoin the current one, creating over 810,000 cubic feet of storage space between the two. The company added its own truck line to transfer goods to San Francisco, San Diego, and even across the United States. General Manager Rodney Spriggs decided to help promote the building in 1925 by hosting the Hollywood Mercantile and Industrial Exposition in the facility. Not long after the company began renting storage to film companies.

In 1928, the company merged with the larger Lyon Storage and Moving Company, with the facility renamed after Lyon. Because of its location, they reached out to film manufacturers. King Charney served as distributor for the Agfa Ansco Corporation out of one of the first floor stores of the building. In 1939, Gevaert Film opened shop in the facility as well. Storing nitrate film wasn’t always safe, however, especially in long, hot periods. On July 31, 1954, nitrate film exploded in the private ninth floor area rented by producer Boris Morros. Television shows like Inner Sanctum went up in flames as part of the roof ripped off the building and remains of film and concrete were found blocks away. Newspapers reported that this was the third such blast in twelve days, thanks to multiple 90+ degree days in facilities that were not air conditioned.

LA Security Storage became owner of the building in the early 1980s and remains so today. This well constructed, reinforced building celebrated its centennial in 2022, operating as a storage facility for its full 100 years. A landmark in survival as well as location, may it continue to stand for another 100 years.

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

Sitting gracefully below Yamashiro restaurant just above Franklin Avenue, the Magic Castle stands as a glorious reminder of the beauty and elegance of old Hollywood.  Almost like magic it appeared on the Hollywood horizon, and miraculously it still survives.

The builders Rollin B. Lane and Katherine Lane possessed an interesting back story before constructing the house in 1909.  Lane met and wooed his wife while traveling in Milwaukee in 1896.  Their marriage was probably one of the first that was rushed in order to vote in an upcoming election.   The Oct. 29, 1896, Los Angeles Times reports from an Associated Press wire that Lane, a Redlands resident, rushed the wedding to return to California to vote for Republican Major McKinley.  As the article stated, Lane “is one of those who believe in patriotism as well as matrimony, and made the one wait on the other.”  He married Kate A. Glynn, a teacher in the sixteenth district school, No. 2, as well as the author of “The Girl From Oshkosh,” and she agreed to a quick marriage in order to travel back to California before the election date.

In Redlands, California, a fine home awaited them, as the Jan. 11, 1896, Los Angeles Times mentioned that Lane paid about $13,000 for the fine home and seventeen acres of C. J. Monson Jr.  Lane had been cashier in the Union Bank before traveling the world for four years, but “…he returns to his first love, declaring he has seen nothing as fine as Redlands.”

Lane participated actively in business there, as President of the Redlands Citrus Union, which was formed to “promote the sale, reputation and selling price of the citrus fruits produced in this locality, and especially to agree upon uniform minimum selling prices…” per the Oct. 29, 1897, Los Angeles Times.

By 1902, Lane and his wife moved to Hollywood, where he worked in banking as well as real estate.  He served on the Board of Directors for the Home Savings Bank and later the American Savings Bank.  In 1909 they constructed their grand house at 7001 Franklin Ave., which for some reason they named Holly Chateau.  Unfortunately the newspaper makes no mention regarding the naming of the residence.

Lane expanded his real estate holdings in 1917 to the San Fernando Valley, joining in partnership with H. J. Whitley, Ross E. Whitley, and L. E. Bliss, to build two story homes in the community of Marian, which was located between Van Nuys and Owensmouth and is now called Northridge.  This area contained thousands of acres of sugar beet and beans farming.

While Lane seemed to disappear behind the scenes, his wife, Katherine, took an active interest in the community and the arts after giving birth to her son Rollin B. Lane Jr. in 1910.  She was a member of several women’s groups, hosting civic organizations, garden parties, teas, and the Euterpe Opera Reading Club from their home.  In 1925 she hosted a 64th birthday party for Carrie Jacobs Bond, the famous female composer.  Over 300 people attended, including C. E. Toberman, the major builder of Hollywood, and Sid Grauman’s mother, Mrs. D. O. Grauman.  Mrs. Lane helped establish Olvera Street in the 1930s as well as leading the planting of trees around the city as a member of the Women’s Community Service Annex of the Chamber of Commerce.

The couple also took an active interest in donating money to charity, giving $20,000 to the Children’s Home Society of California in 1920 to construct a home for unwed mothers in South Los Angeles, with the home being named in honor of Mr. Lane.

Lane passed away in 1940 at the age of 86, noted for generously giving $100,000 for a library at his alma mater, Wisconsin’s Ripon College, as well as $20,000 for a schoolhouse in Pickett, Wisconsin.

Mrs. Lane herself passed away in December 1945 at the age of 82, with her obituary noting she was the granddaughter of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.  The paper noted she was born near Buffalo, New York before moving to Wisconsin.  She was “known as the “Tree Lady” for her interest in community parks.”  Mrs. Lane also acted as official hostess for the State of Wisconsin during the 1932 Olympic Games, held in Los Angeles.

Lane Jr. must have quickly sold the house, because in June 1948, the City Marshal’s office and deputies seized truckloads of furniture from Mrs. Patricia Noblesse Hogan, now living in the house and renting it to lodgers.  Seaboard Financial Co. claimed she had defaulted on a $27,500 loan.  Hogan had been a defendant in five suits over the last year and half, stemming from financial problems that caused her eviction from Mt. Kalmia Castle above the Sunset Strip.

The Magic Castle claims on its website that the home then became a multi-family home, home for the elderly, and then several small apartments before being bought and saved by Thomas O. Glover, owner of Yamashiro’s higher on the hill.

In September 1961, Milt Larsen, a writer for the television show “Truth or Consequences,” and his brother William, a TV producer, took over management of the building, restoring the home to its full glory, and formally opening the Magic Castle on Jan. 2, 1963, as the home of the Academy of Magical Arts.

As the Dec. 26, 1962, Los Angeles Times article noted, the three story, 22 room home contained a secret panel that functioned as the entrance, and “the “Invisible Irma” room boasts a regular piano that plays tunes at a verbal command.”  Original magic posters decorated the rooms.

A September 1963 article described the Victorian decor of the place.  “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise anyone in this crowd if Diamond Jim, Lillian Russell or George Raft sauntered up and put a slug in the nickelodeon.  Even the guests fit into the plush setting of marble and mahogany.  Cecil Beaton would flip over the gold and maroon velvet portiers, the stained glass and potted palms in the conservatory.”

The March 13, 1964, Times article listed dinner prices from $2.95 to $4.95, with appetizers and desserts extra.  The article also mentioned that magicians gave shows throughout the mansion for diners.

A June 18, 1967 article called the home Victorian Gothic, “decoratively, the motif is early Transylvania.  Downstairs, the wine cellar is guarded by a huge, stuffed gorilla.  Off in the corner, holding a glass of blood, is a life-size replica of Bela Lugosi; behind the stairs is a fairly realistic-looking character leaning out of a casket, a stake through his heart… .”

A 1971 story noted that about 600 of the total 2,000 active members were magicians, and that the magicians paid an initiation fee of $50, while associate members paid $300.  Annual dues cost $40, and members picked up their own dinners and bar tabs.

A television show called “The Magician” starring Bill Bixby taped at the home in 1974, the first time filming had been permitted inside the house.  Unfortunately, the series didn’t last long.

In 1978, a brouhaha erupted over the Franklin Garden Apartments right next door, an elegant building constructed in 1920 and containing stone fireplaces, plaster molding, wiring fixtures, open beam ceilings, and tile roofs, a building awarded Historic-Cultural Monument No. 192.  After much fighting over the property, which Glover and Larsen had allowed to fall into dangerous conditions by benign neglect, the apartments were torn down and converted into a parking lot for the facility.

The Magic Castle still operates to this day, full of magic and early Hollywood memorabilia.  Magic shows occur at tables and in small theatres, and dining resembles the elegance of a bygone era.

The Tower appeared in the March 24, 1939, installment of Nuestro Pueblo by Joseph Seewerker and Charles Owens of the Los Angeles Times.

Note: This is an encore post from 2020.

Both marketing gimmick and necessity, the elevator shaft that gave the name High Tower Drive to a street in the Hollywood Highland Avenue Tract is now an icon in Los Angeles. Almost 100 years old, the tower represents the can-do spirit of Los Angeles and its residents.

In 1901, Los Angeles investors H.J. Whitley, F.H. Rindge, Griffith J. Griffith, M.H. Sherman, and E.P. Clark organized the Los Angeles Pacific Boulevard and Development Company to purchase land for development north of Prospect Boulevard in Hollywood. Sherman and Clark, brothers-in-law from Arizona, owned the streetcar line around the city adjacent to land they purchased for later sale as residential lots. Their trolley line ran down Prospect Boulevard and up Highland Avenue as well. The November 18 Los Angeles Evening Press stated “the purpose of this corporation is to boom Hollywood, to make it an attractive suburban town.”

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

The syndicate purchased 165 acres north of Prospect (now Hollywood Boulevard) and adjoining Hollywood at its western edge at Emmet Avenue in the fall of 1901, with more than a mile of frontage on Prospect. The land ran adjacent to Highland Avenue to its west. Ads appeared that December calling the area the Hollywood Ocean View Tract. The December 5, 1901, Los Angeles Times stated that the area, part of Cahuenga Valley’s “frostless belt” and “home of the pineapple, banana and other tropical plants,” “has one of the most attractive views in this neighborhood, including the ocean, city, valley, and mountains.”

George Hoover would later purchase land at Highland and Prospect in 1902 to construct a 50-room hotel to be known as the Hollywood Hotel, and other sales would also include what is now the Magic Castle and Yamashiro’s. Sales would remain strong for three to four years, slowing petering out. Empty lots would continue to be sold to individual investors for years to come.

In 1922, one such syndicate appeared. Investor Fred S. Gallagher organized four other friends to pool their money for purchasing five acres of what they named the Hollywood Highland Avenue Tract. Gallagher, Platt Music Company secretary and treasurer, left the company in 1919 after six years of service, looking to set up on his own. He sold pianos and talking machines at 627 S. Broadway. By the early 1920s, he decided to invest his profits in real estate.

Gallagher’s syndicate purchased five acres north of Sycamore off of Highland Avenue from Edward S. Field for more than $50,000 on March 25, 1922. The group subdivided the property into individual lots, as best they could, with a large part found on a steep hillside. Following a common practice seen all around Los Angeles at the time, the group constructed stairs or “walk-streets” to upper reaches that lacked streets or driveways. Stairs provided easy access to city streets and public transportation, such as the streetcar line off of Highland Avenue below.

Budding mogul Gallagher hired construction engineer Edward T. Flaherty for help in designing stairs as well as even easier access to the high lots. Flaherty, “expert bridge builder” possessed great experience and reputation from constructing the Victoria Bridge at Riverside in 1917, Santa Ana’s Main Street Bridge in 1918, and the Ocean Park Pier in 1921. He would later serve as engineer for the lemon exchange building at Cahuenga and Santa Monica Boulevard as well as the Palmer Building on Hollywood Boulevard.

Newspapers reported April 9 on the group’s innovation, installing “a community electric automatic elevator, by which residents in the tract will be lifted to the top of the hill.” Residents would enjoy some of the best views in the area “without the physical efforts of climbing.” Garages would be situated at the bottom of the hill, near the entrance to the elevator. Ads even featured an illustration of the proposed tower.

Gallagher finally pulled a permit for the tower at 2178 High Tower Drive on October 24, 1922, listing Flaherty as engineer. Estimated to cost $15,000, the five-story tower would feature “250 yards of concrete and 20 tons of decomposed reinforcing steel” to bolt it to the hillside. The group intended it to stand permanently in Hollywood.

The tower’s dramatic, eye-catching look has made it a perfect choice for crime pictures looking for an evocative backdrop. First appearing in a 1961 television episode of “Naked City,” the tower has served as the home of Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe in the 1973 film “The Long Goodbye” and the 1991 thriller “Dead Again.” Strong yet silent, the tower’s individual design perfectly represents the character of the lone, crusading detective.

A true city landmark, 2178 High Tower Drive connects low and high, old and new, as it serves its residents’ needs and lives 98 years after construction.

A matchbook cover for Rickshaw Boy, Courtesy of Mary Mallory.

Note: This is an encore post from 2016.

Graphics, films, advertisements, music – all demonstrate values and cultures of the time and place in which they were created. Words, phrases, or images considered acceptable at that time can often be considered demeaning or racist to future generations. Seeing them reveals a society and how far or little it has come.

California is a remarkable laboratory for understanding the evolution of thought and behavior towards people of other races, particularly the Chinese. Many Chinese first came to California during the Gold Rush fever of the late 1840s. Later their dedicated work and sacrifice helped build the railroads and vast agricultural empires that crossed the state and helped it expand in population and importance. When times became bad, however, white authorities blamed “the other” for problems they themselves created, angry and resentful that people like the Chinese were succeeding through hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. Laws like the Anti-Exclusion Act were enacted to limit their rights to become citizens, own property, or even marry.

“Hollywood Celebrates the Holidays” by Karie Bible and Mary Mallory is available at Amazon and at local bookstores.

A matchbook cover for Ah Wong’s Coolie Hut, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

At the same time, many Anglos were intrigued by Chinese culture and their arts, food, and even dress, which began influencing popular culture. Chinese restaurants sprang up, some in Chinatowns that catered to Chinese, and others on the outskirts of these areas appealing to tourists or the curious. Chinese food, tasty and lower priced than other cuisines, quickly became popular.

The Studio City area became particularly intrigued with Chinese cuisine in the late 1930s and then again in the 1960s, thanks to waves of popular culture and world events. There were several Chinese restaurants, but only those with a more movie oriented or successful clientele like James Wong Howe’s Ching How receive much notice in the newspapers. They mostly leave behind traces of ephemera like matchbooks, menus, and the like on which to build history, revealing ideas and portrayals considered derogatory today.

An ad for the Keys, 3969 Lankershim Blvd., Van Nuys News, April 17, 1955.

In 1939, William W. Wong opened Ah Wong’s Coolie Hut at 11916 Ventura Blvd. in Studio City. Wong, born in California in 1910 and residing at 14629 Lanark Street in what is now Pacoima, leased the building from the Muller Bros., who built the building in 1939 with the help of contractor Horace Shisler. The roof is repaired in 1944, but nothing indicates if Wong is still operating his restaurant. By the 1950s, cocktail lounge Jimmy O’Brien’s occupied the location.

A Chinese restaurant on Lankershim Boulevard across from Universal becomes popular in the early 1960s, called Rickshaw Boy. Perhaps named after the 1945 English translation of Lao She’s book about a poor Beijing rickshaw driver, the restaurant occupied the location of a long time North Hollywood restaurant, dating to 1919.

An item on Rickshaw Boy in the Los Angeles Times, January 1963.

In 1919, John B. Foster began operating a small lunch room at 3969 Lankershim Blvd., right across from Universal Studios but actually located in North Hollywood/Studio City. Possibly the only small eating establishment near the studio, it grew in popularity, requiring additions in 1920 and 1925 before having to rebuild its front facade in 1928 after the widening of Lankershim Blvd. Called the JB Cafe in 1937, Foster also operated a barber and small jewelry shop in the same building by the 1940s.

By the mid-1950s, Julia Keys and family owned and operated the business under the name the Keys Club. They erected an electric sign in 1954 to promote their cocktail lounge, which featured both a piano and Hammond organ played by David Barrett.

James “Jimmy” Hing, formerly manager of Ah Fong’s restaurant in Beverly Hills for seven years, decided to open his own Chinese restaurant at the location in 1962, perhaps because some of his best clients worked at Universal. Opening December 16, 1962, Rickshaw Boy prepared Cantonese food, along with selling such American favorites as fried chicken. The January 13, 1963 Los Angeles Times reported that Universal executive Lew Wasserman and stars Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine attended opening night.

An ad in the Los Angeles Times for Rickshaw Boy, 1963.

Universal stars and executives flocked to the restaurant per newspapers and trades, with many accounts pointing out how diverse customers’ wardrobes could be. The March 22, 1963 Los Angeles Times even noted that the cast of Gregory Peck’s “Captain Newman, M. D.” came to eat lunch, some in pajamas.

By late 1964, however, Universal desired the location for more than just food. Mike Connolly reported in his column that Lew Wasserman was purchasing the business. Rickshaw Boy continued for another two years, before Hing moved his operations strictly to his Confucius Delicatessen, one on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles and another at 3506 W. Jefferson Blvd.

Universal pulled a demolition permit April 7, 1966 and just three days later knocked the building down to use the location for parking. 3969 Lankershim Blvd. is still a parking lot today, this time for the MTA station adjacent to the Campo de Cahuenga.

While these Chinese restaurants show that their food was popular with local residents, the advertising employed by Chinese owners and operators demonstrates the accepted subtle racism of the time. Thankfully society has moved on and becoming accepting and inclusive to all without resorting to caricature.

“Aerodrome Replacing Country-House Garage,” Illustrated London News, Oct. 29, 1921, Courtesy of Mary Mallory

Note: This is an encore post from 2012

Unique thematic architectural homes stand out all around the Los Angeles area, like Yamashiro and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Barnsdall, Freeman, and Storer residences, just to name a few. Glendale possesses another exotic specimen, Leslie C. Brand’s mystical El Miradero, which is now known as the Brand Library. Built as the family residence in 1904, Brand deeded the estate to the city to become a park and library, a jewel in local area recreation spots.

Hollywood at Play, by Donovan Brandt, Mary Mallory and Stephen X. Sylvester is now on sale.

“Under the Crescent”: PRINCE TOUSSON INFORMS HIS WIFE HE WILL FEED HER LOVER TO THE LEOPARD UNLESS SHE CONSENTS.

Born May 12, 1859, in Missouri, Leslie C. Brand exhibited strong interest in real estate and title processing as a teenager, working in a Recorder’s Office and selling real estate before emigrating to Los Angeles in December 1886. Brand established Los Angeles Abstract Co. in 1887 to issue real estate insurance and prove titles. In 1893, the company consolidated with Abstract and Title Co. to form Title Insurance and Trust Co., the behemoth of Los Angeles title companies for decades.

Brand invested his profits in real estate speculation around the Los Angeles Area, buying up chunks of land. By 1902, he purchased 1000 acres in northern Glendale and decided to make it his home. He partnered with railroad baron Henry Huntington to bring the Pacific Electric Co. to town, helped establish the Home Telephone Co. in the city, and formed three utilities that provided power and services to the San Fernando Valley. Brand would go on to found the First National Bank of Glendale in 1905 and the Glendale Country Club in 1907.

Tycoon Brand settled on a lovely piece of ground near the top of the Verdugo hills to build an estate, providing magnificent views of Glendale and the surrounding basin. The home was designed and constructed by Nathaniel Dryden, Brand’s brother-in-law, in a Saracen style reminiscent of an Eastern Indian pavilion which Brand saw at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition held in Chicago. The house regally sat at the top of a hill at the end of a old country road, now known as Grandview Ave., dividing lands of David Burbank and Rafaela Verdugo. Brand christened his home El Miradero, which means “vantage point.” Glendale citizens called it “Brand’s Castle.”

Like something out of a “Thousand and One Nights,” El Miradero mesmerized attention with its curved arches, decorated towers, and elaborate decorative elements. The inside, furnished with Victorian style furniture and dark curtains, reflected more conservative middle American tastes.

The dramatic estate, located at 1601 W. Mountain St., spread majestically over the hillside and presided over Brand’s citrus orchards, and consisted of a pool, clubhouse, personal cemetery, and private reservoir, surrounded by an elegant white plaster fence and elaborate Middle Eastern gate. Just outside of the gate and south of Mountain, Brand built a private aerodrome and hangar with harmonious style to reflect the Middle Eastern look of his residence. Brand flew in and out of his property in his private plane, but also hosted fly-in parties as well, such as one in April 1921 that attracted silent film actresses Ruth Roland and Mary Miles Minter.

Because of its striking looks, the estate stood in for exotic locations in several Hollywood silent films, like Nell Shipman’s 1915 “Under the Crescent,” set in Egypt, 1919’s “The Man Beneath,” in which it plays Sessue Hayakawa’s Indian home, and Hayakawa’s 1920 film “An Arabian Knight,” where it appeared as an Egyptian estate. It also made an appearance as the home of Helen Holmes in the 1925 railroad film “Webs of Steel.”

In 1925, for $10, Brand deeded 488 acres of land surrounding the home to the city of Glendale for use as a public park. He willed the remaining acreage and home to the city with the codicil that his widow Mary Louise would live out her life in the home before acquistion by the city. The will stipulated “said City and its successors shall use said property exclusively as a public library and a public park and said property shall always be known as “Brand Library and Park.” Brand also required that the city should maintain it in a state comparable to the best parks in Southern California, with the city providing police, maintenance, and library staff.

Mrs. Brand died in a car crash in Arizona in May 1945, at which time distant relatives of Brand sued to get the estate back. The courts ruled in Glendale’s favor in October 1945.

The city opened the grounds as a park while they considered how to adapt the home into a library. They decided that because of its unique artistic design, the home should operate as an arts library. After rehabilitation and construction work, the city opened the Brand Library and Art Center in February 1956. In 1965, the city built a large addition to the structure as a separate building, allowing art shows, concerts, programs, lectures, and the like.

In 2008, Cecilia Rasmussen of the Los Angeles Times discovered that Brand had illegally married his mistress, Birdie Gordon, in Mexico and fathered two sons while still married to Mary Louise.

The Brand family cemetery still survives north of the house, with one monument in the shape of a pyramid. The reservoir above the house collects floodwaters and deposits after heavy rains. There are hiking trails around the home, with a couple leading to the top of the Verdugos. Currently the library is closed while undergoing renovations, and is expected to reopen early in 2014.

Update: The library reopened in 2014.

King Camp Gillette dies at the age of 77 in 1932. He gave architect Wallace Neff free rein to built an expansive ranch in Calabasas, but only lived there for a few years before his death.

Tennessean Clarence Brown reigned as one of MGM’s top directors in the early 1930s, directing everything from Greta Garbo star vehicles to Joan Crawford Pre-Codes to Clark Gable romantic comedies. Looking for a ranch at which he could spread his wings, literally and figuratively, Brown purchased the lush King Gillette Ranch out in Calabasas, fit for any pasha. Brown enjoyed his little slice of paradise, helping preserve its unique character.

A bucolic wonderland in the 1920s, far from the city, Calabasas and the surrounding area of the Santa Monica Mountains lured the elite westward for rural rest and relaxation. Razor king King C. Gillette fell under the area’s spell in 1928, purchasing 640 acres on which to erect a grand hacienda by the popular architect Wallace Neff.

Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons From America’s Princess,”  is now on sale.

Neff could be called the architect to the stars during the 1920s for his work designing elaborate mansions, many in what could be called California style, for the likes of director King Vidor, writer Frances Marion and her husband, cowboy star Fred Thomson, superstars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Claudette Colbert and Cary Grant.

Bon vivant Gillette enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle, thanks to his invention and manufacture of the first disposable razor blades, which went on sale in 1903. Traveling the world and dreaming of an utopian paradise that he called the “People’s Corporation,” Gillette moved to Southern California to join up with the state’s political avant-garde and socialist leader Upton Sinclair and began buying properties. Within a few years, Gillette owned a luxurious mansion near the Beverly Hills Hotel, a ranch out near a fledgling Palm Springs, a vast ranch in Tulare County and a seaside retreat in Newport Harbor before purchasing his Calabasas property.

Commissioning the refined and elegant Neff to design a stunning estate in the Spanish Colonial style, Gillette and his wife began a world cruise in 1928, leaving Neff to his own devices in designing and constructing a lavish retreat that followed his plans to the Nth degree. Six draftsmen labored six months crafting elaborate plot, furnishings and floor plans, down to the smallest detail, all fit for a king.

Neff began construction by excavating the pond, employing the dirt removed from the hole to create adobe-like brick blocks on site with which to build the home. Neff designed what author Diane Kanner calls a “picturesque version of an Andalusian village – a rural walled compound that included a master’s residence, an overseer’s quarters, stables and cellars, with eucalyptus trees flanking the entry road and ponds, weeping willows and native oak on the horizon.”

The King Gillette – Clarence Brown Home, courtesy of Mary Mallory.

This quintessential Spanish Colonial design followed some of the same elements as found in the beautiful Enchanted Hill Neff created for Marion and Thomson. Patios, loggias and porches surrounded the home, with an oval opening through a wing allowing entrance to the motor court at the rear of the home. A long, dramatic driveway with eucalyptus trees flanking it led from Mulholland Highway, past the stable/bunkhouse near the entrance, picturesque pond and outbuildings to a home featuring a tower resembling a campanile The home’s layout on the property echoed that of the Santa Monica Mountains behind it.

The thirty-room house contained walls over 2 feet thick, 113 doors carved in over 19 styles, top grade tile on the floors and in baths, an oversize tub for the large Gillette, black tile in his master bath and elegant continental furnishings. The house was built on a somewhat irregular shape resembling a W, with the open motor court on the east and a semi-enclosed patio with fountain was situated on the west side of the home with a fountain and view of the mountains.

The patio of the ranch, via Photoplay, 1937.

Gillette had little time to enjoy his hacienda when he arrived in the United States in 1929 after becoming ill on the cruise. The former razor magnate died in the home Saturday, July 9, 1932, of an intestinal illness. Thanks to arguments over Gillette’s estate and the repressed financial situation in the country, the vast acreage failed to sell until May 20, 1935 (recorded September 7), when newspapers reported that rugged director Clarence Brown had purchased the property and 360 surrounding acres during an auction. The September 10 Los Angeles Times reported the sales price as $500,000 for what many described as a horse breeding facility for the director, but the historic survey by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy lists a price of only $38,250.00. The purchase included billiard table, pipe organ, and outbuildings. Brown hired Neff and Viennese architect Paul Laszlo to modify the interior furnishings, adding a screening room as well. A tennis court, swimming pool, and airstrip and hanger were also new additions. A visiting journalist described the home as “Spanish Renaissance in motif, spacious and beautifully paneled rooms led to a sunlit patio, where tall, graceful arches framed a picture of acres and acres of trees and lawn, rolling to a rambling lake below, while beyond were deep blue mountains.”

Over the next 17 years, entertainment magazines featured some layouts of the home as architectural ones had done upon completion of construction in the late 1920s. Photos by MGM portrait photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull revealed the mansion’s simple but elegant layout and beauty. Other images showcased gentleman farmer and he man Brown working his property, doing everything from repairing his barbecue, trimming trees, changing locks, planting crops, making repairs, checking his horses and chickens, or even flying in and out in his private airplane. In 1939, Brown updated his hanger to a more modern concrete and steel facility, while adding a bomb shelter in the basement.

Several images displayed Brown in his favorite pastime, barbecuing with his giant grill, which he often did for cast parties as well as elaborate July 4 birthday celebrations for MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer. Proud Tennessean Brown also hosted the Tennessee Volunteers football team to an outdoor cookout on December 26, 1939 as they prepared for that year’s Rose Bowl. The July 13, 1941 Los Angeles Times even featured barbecue recipes from the famed director.

Besides entertaining, Brown also occasionally employed his ranch as a shooting location, filming scenes from such films as “Edison the Man” here.

The grounds of the King Gillette-Clarence Brown ranch offered sweeping views of the mountains, as shown in a photo from Architectural Digest, 1928.

After divorcing his wife, the former silent film actress Alice Joyce, in 1945, Brown spent less and less time in Calabasas as he and his new wife retired and purchased property near Palm Desert. In 1952, Brown sold the ranch to the Claretian order (Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Rome), which created the Claretville Seminary to train missionaries, adding a large training facility in 1954. They added a building containing library and dormitory in 1961, along with a large addition to the house as well.

In 1971 St. Thomas Aquinas College opened on the property when the school leased space from the seminary. The Claretian Order attempted to sell the property in 1972, and finally found a buyer in 1977 when Elizabeth Clair’s Prophet’s Church Universal and Triumphant purchased the tract and later opened their own college. They sold to Soka University in 1986, who operated their own facility here until 2007 when the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy finally purchased the acreage, which they had considered for years. It now serves as offices for the group, which employs the original stable as their visitors’ center. They allow filming on the property, and for several years the show “the Biggest Loser” has shot at a facility on the grounds.

Still as gorgeous and regal as ever, what was formerly King Gillette and Clarence Brown’s Spanish Colonial fiefdom is now public property as part of Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, offering an area at which to picnic or hike. The estate hearkens back to the romantic days of California’s Spanish past, a gorgeous oasis of beauty and peace.

La Golondrina in Screenland magazine, 1930.

News came this week that current owners of historic La Golondrina Cafe could soon be foreclosed on by the city of Los Angeles. La Golondrina is the oldest brick building in Los Angeles, possibly built in 1857, and located in the heart of Olvera Street and the very beginnings of Los Angeles. It represents the junction of Italian and Mexican history in the city, as early pioneers Antonio Pelanconi and Consuelo Castilo de Bonzo both owned the property and helped promote the winery and restaurant business from its environs.

Some early records claim that Austro-Italian immigrant Guiseppi Covacchichi constructed the brick building on Vine or Wine Street somewhere in the 1850s, with most histories resting circa 1855-1857, in an area surrounded by vines and wine businesses. The two story building featured a second floor exterior wood balcony, while inside featured painted wood beams, balcony inside, and large fireplace on the first floor. Within a few years, he sold to Antonio Pelanconi, who would establish a successful wine business in the property. Pelanconi operated his wine cellar and business on the first floor, living with his large family on the second.

A sketch of La Golondrina, New Movie Magazine, April 1932.

Born 1833 in Gordova in the Province of Sondrio, Italy, Pelanconi immigrated to America at 18. Arriving in New York, he traveled by prairie schooner to Los Angeles and began working in orchards. Ambitious and savvy, he moved up to ranching and then the winery business. In 1866, Pelanconi married Isabel Ramirez, daughter of early pioneer, Don Juan Ramirez, who owned the land on which the building was constructed, near his own large winery on what is now the east side of Olvera Street. Thus he united Mexican/Spanish and Italian interests in the area. Pelanconi would become one of the largest vintners in Southern California, and would help incorporate the California Wine Growers Association in 1875. He would die just four years later in 1879 after purchasing large tracts of land around Glendale to grow his business.

The area around the La Golondrina Cafe and the Plaza slowly disintegrated over the next 50 years as ruling elites moved the city center south and west. In 1928, Northern California transplant Christine Sterling determined to save and rehabilitate what was then known as Olvera Street, particularly the forlorn Avila Adobe, recognizing the Spanish history of the city in a romanticized fashion. The restored Olvera Street opened Easter Sunday, April 1930, rechristened “Paseo de Los Angeles,” Pathway of the Angels in English, highlighting the Spanish and Mexican history of the area but restored without their help.

Sterling approached local La Mision Cafe owner Consuelo Castillo de Bonzo to open a cafe on the first floor of the former Pelanconi building. Born in Mexico March 22, 1897 and arriving in Los Angeles in 1902 with her family, she married Italian American John A. de Bonzo in 1917. Proud of her Mexican heritage, she opened La Mision Cafe serving traditional Mexican food. Casa La Golondrina Cafe at 35 Olvera Street opened April 20, 1930, with newspaper ads announcing the serving of a Mexican turkey dinner and other delicacies with a $2 reservation. Later ads proclaimed it a “quaint Mexican cafe” and listing Mexican and Spanish Chicken Dinner for $1 as well as a la carte dishes. The restaurant occupied the former wine cellar, while the main floor, up a small flight of stairs, hosted the Fiesta Room, with dining, dancing, and entertaining.

Both La Golodrina and Olvera Street quickly became popular with local residents who adored the charming, romantic look of the city’s early history. Movie stars and celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Joe E. Brown, Warner Baxter, Ramon Novarro, Ronald Colman, William Powell, Gary Cooper, and Antonio Moreno descended on the Street, happy partakers of Mexican food such as guacamole, chicken mole, and chicken taquitos at La Golondrina and audience members at the puppet theatre located on the street. Consuelo charmed audiences, bubbly and infectious in her Spanish, though she spoke English. Musicians strummed guitar and marimba while waitresses dressed in native garb also sung to audiences.

de Bonzo, called the “patron saint of Olvera Street” by the Los Angeles Times in 1932, happily saluted her country on days like Mexican Independence Day while greeting guests who flocked to the cafe thanks to celebrity attendance and plenty of publicity mentions in newspapers and magazines. Historic and civics groups booked luncheons and families came to celebrate special times. Hungry patrons celebrated Olvera Street anniversaries, Posadas, and Fiesta de las Flores Parades by eating at the famed cafe. Casa La Golodrina became a Los Angeles institution, one of the oldest restaurants in the city at the Olvera Street, Plaza de Los Angeles HIstorical Monument, and one now popular with Mexican immigrants and entrepreneurs.

After de Bonzo passed away in 1977, the cafe continued to be owned by family members until sold late in 2021 to the Gomez family during the pandemic. Now the city is demanding back rent and fees from them or otherwise face foreclosure. The junction of early Italian and Mexican history in Los Angeles, Casa de la Golondrina has survived almost two centuries of the city’s history, may it live centuries more.

The Vista Theatre in 1951, via Water and Power Associates.

The Vista Theatre opened October 9, 1923. Built as an upscale house for smaller studio releases, it remains viable even today, as director Quentin Tarantino restores it. One of the first film theatres in East Hollywood though surrounded by film studios at the time of construction, the Vista brings beauty and elegance to the area.

On March 6, the Community Building Corporation announced the construction of a large Spanish Revival motion picture theatre at the intersection of Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, the former site of the Fine Arts Studio backlot where the massive Babylon set for D. W. Griffith’s 1916 film “Intolerance” stood. Besides a theatre, one of the first in the area, the building would include two storefronts and help elevate the local community as well as its real estate value, running under the operation of theatre showman Lou Bard, who had opened the Hillstreet Bard Theatre downtown Los Angeles two years before. The March 18 Los Angeles Times presented architect Lewis A. Smith’s Spanish Revival elevation for Bard’s, stating that J. H.. Woodhouse & Son of Pasadena would serve as contractor for the two-story building.

Bard’s (later the Vista) in 1923, via Water and Power Associates.

By September 17, newspapers reported construction nearing completion of the theatre, with the opening scheduled for the first week in October. Owners claimed seating for 1,200 on one floor, stating “perfect vision is possible from any corner of the house.” 200 luxurious ovrstuffed divan seats would be located in the last 15 rows of the middle section, an early version of today’s reclining seats. One week before opening, ads appeared noting the coming grand opening of the Bard’s Hollywood Theatre at 4473 Sunset Blvd. “reflecting the Spirit of Egyptian Splendor.”

On October 9 in the Hollywood Citizen News, Bard’s advertisements announced that night’s grand opening, “offering a carefully selected program of motion pictures and vaudeville”. Popular and beloved child star Baby Peggy would appear for the screening of her new two-reel short “Tips” at “a unique palace devoted to refined entertainment.” Vaudeville performer Noodles Fagan would serve as master of ceremonies for the premiere.

The Citizen News reviewed Bard’s grand opening the next day, called it “one of the prettiest small theaters in America.” Befitting the popularity of Egyptian Revival architecture sweeping the country after the discovery of King Tut’s tomb in 1922, Bard’s featured Egyptian decorative elements and featured subdued green and gold colors throughout its interior, with indirect lighting of multiple colors by Solar Lighting Co. providing another refined touch. Spacious foyers aided the feeling of open space, especially when filled with one dozen attractive young usherettes in Egyptian costumes assisting guests, adding more atmospheric touches.

Vince Barnett with the Vista Theatre in the background in The Crooked Web (1955)

State-of-the-art equipment filled the 838-seat theatre. Two “Rolls-Royce caliber” projectors in a completely isolated booth displayed films, with double dissolving slide projection allowing special effects, advertising, or information. Twin spotlights would illuminate vaudeville performances, on the small 7-foot deep stage. Besides indoor amenities, the theatre offered free parking adjacent to the theatre. Theatre owners themselves thanked local audiences for attending the premiere in Citizen-News’ ads, calling Bard’s “the newest auditorium of pleasure.”

Appealing to families, Bard’s offered children’s matinees Saturday afternoon featuring westerns, serials, and comedies, along with special music and vaudeville acts integrating the children in the audience interactively as well as animals.

Less than a week after opening, thieves broke into the building in the middle of the night, removed the safe to the men’s room. After blowing it up, they discovered a smaller safe inside the larger one, which they mutilated but where unable to breach.

In 1928, the theatre was renamed Vista, which it has remained in several configurations over the following decades, a lovely one-screen theatre that suffered its own ups and downs before once again returning to classy status in the last few decades.

The elegant Vista Theatre stands as a perfect example of an intimate neighborhood movie theatre and playhouse, providing entertainment close to home for local residents. May it continue operating as a gorgeous one-screen theatre after Tarantino’s restoration.

A sketch of the “The Witch’s House” by Charles Owens from “Nuestro Pueblo,” courtesy of Mary Mallory

Note: This is an encore post from 2013.

Once upon a time, home design and architecture saluted fantasy and make-believe, and not just in fiction. Bilbo Baggins and lucky leprechauns resided in twee little bungalows, short, off-kilter, hutch-like, but so did imaginative and childlike Los Angeles residents of the 1920s. Storybook architecture, dreamed up and promoted by film industry veterans, flourished near movie studios, magical little Brigadoon-like structures.

A strong proponent of storybook design was Hollywood art director Harry Oliver. Noted for his work as art director on films “7th Heaven” (1927) and “Street Angel” (1928). Oliver merrily dreamed up colorful structures on the side, like the famous Van de Kamp’s windmills and Los Feliz’s Tam-o-Shanter restaurant. Another whimsical structure, however, remains his most famous design, the Witch’s House in Beverly Hills.

Mary Mallory’s “Hollywoodland:Tales Lost and Found” is available as an ebook.

A postcard of the “Witch’s House” is listed on EBay as Buy It Now for $10.97.

Oliver began working as a printer’s devil as a child and came to California as a theatrical scenery painter in 1908. By 1919, he was working for film director Irvin Willat as a technical director. Starting as a cameraman in New York’s fledgling film industry in 1908, Willat moved from studio to studio until he ended up as an integral lenser for producer Thomas Ince, especially on films like “Civilization” (1916) and “False Faces” (1919). Willat shot atmospheric films and devised intricate visual effects for the times as well, and sometimes edited the pictures on which he worked.

Willat directed the film, “Behind the Door” in 1919, on which Oliver served as technical director. Admiring Oliver’s work, Willat employed him as technical director on two more pictures that year, “Below the Surface” and “Down Home.”

When it came time to design an administration building for his new Irvin Willat Productions in February 1920, the director turned again to Oliver. Oliver’s playful design appeared on the March 1920 cover for the Home Designer magazine, a gabled, angular cottage with thatched roof straight out of “Snow White” or “Hansel and Gretel.” By April 15, 1921, the studio was virtually completed, and the dreamy building appeared as a set in the film “The Face of the World,” starring Barbara Bedford and Edward Hearn.

Unfortunately, Willat quickly ran into financial problems and by 1922 folded his company. The sweet structure was employed as a set for several years, until journeyman film director/producer Ward Lascelle purchased it. Lascelle, who entered the film business working for Fine Arts Studio and D.W. Griffith, acquired property in Beverly Hills at Carmelita Drive and Walden Drive in 1925, and realized that the colorful building would draw attention as his personal residence.

The March 1925 Photoplay magazine called the building, “An artistic structure, one might say, almost futuristic, all gables and gables and gables.” The magazine related that Lascelle bought a lot in Beverly Hills, and “he went to Willat and purchased his studio’s main administration building. He moved it gables and all…” to his property.

New Movie Magazine featured the house in its September 1930 issue, describing it as a “Witch’s House,” and giving a little history. “A strange Mother Goose creation of broken roof lines and eerie windows, this house was the studio of Irwin (sic) Willat. When he abandoned picture production, the structure was moved to Beverly Hills, where it is now the residence of Ward Lascelles (sic), another picture executive.”

The Green family and others owned it over the years, and by 1980, the home contained 12 rooms in 3,700 square feet, including wet bar, wine cellar, three fireplaces, maid’s quarters, three bedrooms, and four bathrooms. The home also appeared in at least two other films, “The Loved One,” and “Clueless.”

A popular tourist attraction today, “The Witch’s House” represents the perfect whimsical and spooky Halloween residence, a proper abode for such popular culture witches as Witch Hazel or Wicked Witch of the West.

The Hollywoodland Sign, in a photo published in the Los Angeles Evening Herald, Dec. 8, 1923.

Note: This is an encore post from 2017.

Originally constructed as a publicity gimmick and branding symbol to help generate sales for a real estate development, the Hollywood Sign is now a worldwide icon just as powerful as Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, and the Statue of Liberty, signifying a land of glamour and opportunity. Myths have always existed about it, from the date of its construction to how the city of Hollywood obtained it. After in-depth research by both historian Bruce Torrence and myself, we can conclusively say the sign was constructed in late November and early December 1923, and illuminated in that first week of December.

Like me, a California transplant involved in history, research, and writing since I was child, Torrence has always been fascinated by Hollywood history, perhaps because his two famous grandfathers contributed much to it. His paternal grandfather, Ernest Torrence, starred in many classic silent films such as “Steamboat Bill Jr.” and “Peter Pan” after a successful career as an opera singer. His maternal grandfather C. E. Toberman could be called the builder of Hollywood for his construction of so many iconic structures around Hollywood Boulevard. Bruce began a photo collection of Hollywood in 1972 with thirty photographs, which has blossomed into thousands. He employed these photos in writing one of Hollywood’s first detailed history books in 1979 called “Hollywood: The First 100 Years.”

Hollywood at Play: The Lives of the Stars Between Takes, by Stephen X. Sylvester, Mary Mallory and Donovan Brandt, goes on sale Feb. 1, 2017.

Both of us are dogged in searching out facts and details to get Hollywood history right, made much easier with the opening of newspapers through microfilm and now digital searching, along with such great digitized sites as the Media History Digital Library and Variety Archives at the Margaret Herrick Library. We look for multiple citations to back up evidence, and especially primary evidence, such as documents, building records, and films, and secondary sources like newspapers, magazines, and books. Getting history right often means correcting yourself, as I admit I fell into the trap of claiming the Hollywoodland Sign was constructed in July 1923. After years of research by both of us, we have discovered the missing pieces clarifying the history of the sign.

When I began writing my Arcadia Publishing book “Hollywoodland” in 2010, I began searching out the history of the development and its world famous sign. Few if any period sources could be found providing a detailed, accurate history of the Hollywoodland Sign, even the Los Angeles Times, owned by one of the five partners of the Hollywoodland development. No newspaper reported the actual day of the beginning or completion of construction, but thanks to discovery on the history of Hollywoodland publicity chief L. J. Burrud, I began slowly piecing the puzzle together.
L.J. Burrud, Hollywood Publicity Man

Hollywoodland developers Tracey Shoults and S. H. Woodruff announced the opening of the real estate tract in late March 1923 newspapers. They focused mainly on the newspapers of record for Los Angeles, like the Times and Examiner, attempting to appeal to upper middle class and rich businessmen and entertainers. Since Times publisher Harry Chandler was one of the partners, the newspaper provided ample free publicity of the site in multiple stories virtually every day of the week, often with photographs. With real estate booming all round the city, sales initially took off, but the real estate men realized they needed special publicity to help brand their neighborhood as the “supreme achievement for community building” for people of discriminating taste.

On September 7, 1923, Woodruff turned to Lake Arrowhead press man L. J. Burrud to devise unique ballyhoo gimmicks to land stories and photographs of the Hollywoodland development in newspapers and magazines across the United States. Copying tactics from his past as a newsreel cameraman, actuality and documentary filmmaker, Burrud conceived of one of the first mass media campaigns to brand the special nature of the community. Besides planting stories in newspapers, the publicity man shot a film documenting construction of the Hollywoodland demonstration home, arranged for sports motor cars to traverse the rough, unpaved hills, and even created a Hollywoodland Community Orchestra to play grocery store openings and radio shows.

In later years, advertising man John Roche claimed in interviews that Times publisher Harry Chandler asked him to design a gigantic billboard visible from miles away, but it seems strange that someone would wait decades to state such information. Unfortunately no paperwork from the Hollywoodland development exists, so until it shows up, there is no definitive proof of who conceived the look of the sign and when. While virtually all other major real estate developments built thin, red-colored name signs, Hollywoodland’s would be gigantic 45 foot letters spelling out the world Hollywoodland, making it much more visible all over Los Angeles. Falling back on his filmmaking experience, publicity chief Burrud conceived the brilliant idea for newsreel coverage documenting the construction of the sign, a gimmick to help announce the opening of their stupendous development to the world.

Holly Leaves, November 1923.

I discovered that construction of the Hollywoodland Sign began in November 1923, after finding a photograph taken from the Hollywood Athletic Club published in the November 16, 1923 Holly Leaves revealing a barren hillside above the development, devoid of any sign or construction equipment. Fox Movietone newsreel footage exists of the Hollywoodland Sign’s construction, revealing workers, mules, and caterpillar tractors laboring to carry sheet metal, telephone poles, pipes, and chicken wire up the precipitous slopes to build the giant sign in a jagged line on the steep hill.

Realizing that filmmakers usually employ a slate in front of their footage listing title, date, and running time, I contacted Greg Wilsbacher, director of the Fox Movietone Newsreel Collection at the University of South Carolina, to inquire about a slate or paperwork for the newsreel footage shot of this event. Wilsbacher revealed that cameraman Blaine Walker shot the Sign’s construction, stating that the undeveloped negative arrived at the Fox Movietone Newsreel office dated “November 27th-23,” with the punch record of the New York Fox office also showing a late November 1923 date. Train travel across the United States took approximately three days at that time, meaning the footage would have departed Los Angeles on November 27 and arrived at the end of the month. As Wilsbacher also stated, a newsreel cameraman’s job was to get unique footage first and rush it to production offices for immediate distribution to theatres, meaning Walker filmed it immediately before sending it off to New York.

Not only were the developers constructing an enormous billboard to advertise Hollywoodland by day, but also one to blaze its name at night. They hired Crescent Sign Company to devise a way to build the Sign on the hill, and Woodruff hired Electrical Products Corporation to illuminate it with electric lights, creating what the December 9 Los Angeles Examiner calls the “largest electrically outlined word in the world.”

Historian Torrence discovered the actual date of first illumination when investigating when the letter “H” was actually blown off the Sign after a question posed by a reader. He, I, and everyone else mistakenly believed the letter was demolished by winds in 1949, though his examination of Los Angeles Herald Examiner and Los Angeles Times proved it actually happened in 1944.

A worker stands in crossbar of the letter “D” in the Hollywoodland Sign, Practical Electrics, September 1924.

While there, he decided to peruse the November/December 1923 Evening Herald to find information on the final days of the Sign’s construction after my discovery of the November date for the newsreel footage. He discovered the missing link, connecting the Sign’s November/December 1923 construction to its first electric illumination. Torrence came across a December 8, 1923 Evening Herald story stating that the sign, “believed to be the largest in the world,…will be illuminated tonight.” The article includes photographs showing the full length of the sign as well as an image of a worker dwarfed by the gigantic letter “D” he stands in.

On Saturday, December 8, 1923, S. H. Woodruff and his crew flipped the switch turning on the illuminated lights which spelled out the words “Holly,” “Wood,” “Land,” “Hollywoodland,” with Woodruff stating in an article in the December 9 Examiner, “it was only fitting that the first blaze of electric lights to shine forth from the tremendous sign should be in commemoration of some important event in the development of Hollywoodland,” namely the opening of Unit No. 4 to sales. In an ironic twist, the Los Angeles Herald and Los Angeles Examiner note the first lighting of the Hollywoodland Sign, while the Los Angeles Times, owned and published by Harry Chandler, one of the major partners in the development, failed to report it.

An ad in the Dec. 12, 1923, Los Angeles Times notes the completion of the Hollywoodland Sign.

Paul D. Howse, president of Electrical Products Corporation, bought an advertisement in the December 12, 1923, Los Angeles Times with an illustration of the electrified sign. He congratulates Woodruff for completing the stupendous sign, declaring “You had the vision to undertake and accomplish the greatest realty enterprise in California…” and then stating, “…We thank you, Mr. Woodruff, for having given us the opportunity to engineer and install this great electrical sign. May your expenditure be appreciated by those who love to see Los Angeles lead in enterprise and really “big” things.

A description of the Hollywoodland Sign in Practical Electrics for September, 1924.

Further sealing the November/December 1923 construction date, the September 1924 issue of Practical Electrics provided me by another historian describes what it calls “the mammoth Hollywoodland Electric Sign” in detail, noting its eight months of display. The article employs some creative hyperbole to state that “the sign is over one-sixth of a mile long, and nearly 4,000 lamps are required to light it.”

It reports that the billboard is visible at a distance of more than twelve miles, supported by a framework of telephone poles 60 to 80 feet high. “Two by six inch timbers, placed 16 to 24 inches between centers, are the horizontal elements of the frame. To this the letters, made of galvanized iron, are nailed. Each stroke of a letter is 13 feet wide. To illuminate the 13 great letters 3,700 10-watt lamps are used, placed along the edge of each stroke….There are 55 outlets to each circuit and the wiring is all open on the back of the structure. Everything centers in a junction box near the center of the sign…Taken on a straight line, the sign is 975 feet long and the letters are 45 feet high.” While the letters were 45 feet high, it’s very doubtful the sign was that long.

While erroneously reported to have been constructed in July 1923, thanks to these discoveries, we now know that the Hollywoodland Sign was constructed in November/early December 1923, and illuminated for the first time on Saturday, December 8, 1923. Paraphrasing Electrical Products Corporation President Paul Howse, Hollywoodland not only conceived the largest electrical sign in the world in 1923, but one that now serves as the iconic representation of Hollywood and its film industry while also reigning as Los Angeles’ most popular tourist attraction today.

The Tower appeared in the March 24, 1939, installment of Nuestro Pueblo by Joseph Seewerker and Charles Owens of the Los Angeles Times.

Note: This is an encore post from 2020.

Both marketing gimmick and necessity, the elevator shaft that gave the name High Tower Drive to a street in the Hollywood Highland Avenue Tract is now an icon in Los Angeles. Almost 100 years old, the tower represents the can-do spirit of Los Angeles and its residents.

In 1901, Los Angeles investors H.J. Whitley, F.H. Rindge, Griffith J. Griffith, M.H. Sherman, and E.P. Clark organized the Los Angeles Pacific Boulevard and Development Company to purchase land for development north of Prospect Boulevard in Hollywood. Sherman and Clark, brothers-in-law from Arizona, owned the streetcar line around the city adjacent to land they purchased for later sale as residential lots. Their trolley line ran down Prospect Boulevard and up Highland Avenue as well. The November 18 Los Angeles Evening Press stated “the purpose of this corporation is to boom Hollywood, to make it an attractive suburban town.”

Mary Mallory’s “Living With Grace” is now on sale.

The syndicate purchased 165 acres north of Prospect (now Hollywood Boulevard) and adjoining Hollywood at its western edge at Emmet Avenue in the fall of 1901, with more than a mile of frontage on Prospect. The land ran adjacent to Highland Avenue to its west. Ads appeared that December calling the area the Hollywood Ocean View Tract. The December 5, 1901, Los Angeles Times stated that the area, part of Cahuenga Valley’s “frostless belt” and “home of the pineapple, banana and other tropical plants,” “has one of the most attractive views in this neighborhood, including the ocean, city, valley, and mountains.”

George Hoover would later purchase land at Highland and Prospect in 1902 to construct a 50-room hotel to be known as the Hollywood Hotel, and other sales would also include what is now the Magic Castle and Yamashiro’s. Sales would remain strong for three to four years, slowing petering out. Empty lots would continue to be sold to individual investors for years to come.

In 1922, one such syndicate appeared. Investor Fred S. Gallagher organized four other friends to pool their money for purchasing five acres of what they named the Hollywood Highland Avenue Tract. Gallagher, Platt Music Company secretary and treasurer, left the company in 1919 after six years of service, looking to set up on his own. He sold pianos and talking machines at 627 S. Broadway. By the early 1920s, he decided to invest his profits in real estate.

Gallagher’s syndicate purchased five acres north of Sycamore off of Highland Avenue from Edward S. Field for more than $50,000 on March 25, 1922. The group subdivided the property into individual lots, as best they could, with a large part found on a steep hillside. Following a common practice seen all around Los Angeles at the time, the group constructed stairs or “walk-streets” to upper reaches that lacked streets or driveways. Stairs provided easy access to city streets and public transportation, such as the streetcar line off of Highland Avenue below.

Budding mogul Gallagher hired construction engineer Edward T. Flaherty for help in designing stairs as well as even easier access to the high lots. Flaherty, “expert bridge builder” possessed great experience and reputation from constructing the Victoria Bridge at Riverside in 1917, Santa Ana’s Main Street Bridge in 1918, and the Ocean Park Pier in 1921. He would later serve as engineer for the lemon exchange building at Cahuenga and Santa Monica Boulevard as well as the Palmer Building on Hollywood Boulevard.

Newspapers reported April 9 on the group’s innovation, installing “a community electric automatic elevator, by which residents in the tract will be lifted to the top of the hill.” Residents would enjoy some of the best views in the area “without the physical efforts of climbing.” Garages would be situated at the bottom of the hill, near the entrance to the elevator. Ads even featured an illustration of the proposed tower.

Gallagher finally pulled a permit for the tower at 2178 High Tower Drive on October 24, 1922, listing Flaherty as engineer. Estimated to cost $15,000, the five-story tower would feature “250 yards of concrete and 20 tons of decomposed reinforcing steel” to bolt it to the hillside. The group intended it to stand permanently in Hollywood.

The tower’s dramatic, eye-catching look has made it a perfect choice for crime pictures looking for an evocative backdrop. First appearing in a 1961 television episode of “Naked City,” the tower has served as the home of Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe in the 1973 film “The Long Goodbye” and the 1991 thriller “Dead Again.” Strong yet silent, the tower’s individual design perfectly represents the character of the lone, crusading detective.

A true city landmark, 2178 High Tower Drive connects low and high, old and new, as it serves its residents’ needs and lives 98 years after construction.

Architect’s rendering of Highbourne Gardens from Architect and Engineer.

Real estate development is all about money, expanding and “improving” on property to obtain high financial rewards. HIghbourne Gardens shows the evolution of what is called multi-famlly housing in Los Angeles, beginning as an intimate, cozy bungalow court and expanding to include an elegant apartment building just minutes from Hollywood Boulevard, extending back into what is now Whitley Heights. All that remains today is the lovely 96-year-old apartment building, facing busy Highland Avenue, just down the street from the Hollywood Bowl.

In 1915, Allen and Edgerton Shore constructed 12 furnished bungalows ranging from 3-6 rooms in a loose complex at 1920-1962 N. Highland Ave. called Highbourne Gardens, surrounded by lush landscaping and featuring its own steam heating plant. The elegant apartment hotel development adapted a small part of Italy to Los Angeles, offering a homey, cozy atmosphere for those homesick for family or looking to create a new one in the booming film town of Hollywood.

The complex featured 10 stucco cottages and a Swiss chalet in what today would be considered an upscale small lot development, with tiled baths, hardwood floors, tile fireplaces, built-in features, finished in mahogany and oak. The Los Angeles Times praised it, especially its landscaping by Wilbur David Cook Jr., which featured gardens, lily ponds, hedges, and winding paths. A bowling green divided the north and south parts of the property, featuring a view over a bridge crossing a miniature brook to a teahouse.

The Shores cashed out in 1920, selling to Irving G. McCulley of Detroit, who intended to make his investment his home, maintaining the quiet, friendly atmosphere. Landscape architect George Hall praised the development as perfect for progressive cities, providing a “scientific land division and the grouping of small houses…” to allow individuality, privacy, and attractiveness.

Highland Tower Apartments, 1922 N. Highland, via Google Street View.

He employed Highbourne Gardens as his stunning example of multi-family housing, in that each bungalow possessed its own porch or loggia, a small garden, and views to Highland Avenue. The complex itself contained arcades, pergolas, walks, and lattice work, creating individual looks for each bungalow as well as a cohesive community look throughout. These developments featured homes for multiple families, while providing privacy and individuality.

George K. Orme, a retired Candian manufacturer, purchased the lovely property in 1927, forming the Highbourne Holding Company as the figurehead to expand on the current property in order to rake higher profits, subdividing it into parts. The stylish complex would exist side by side with Orme’s new building, which would offer more high end housing for renters. Orne purchased bonds with the Leo. G. MacLaughlin Company in February 1927 for a new $300,000 Class A building. Ads promoting the bonds stated the development would earn $75,000 each year in income, before McLaughlin offered them for sale in April. In May 1927, the vintage bungalows were relocated to the back of the property along Las Palmas Avenue near Franklin Avenue. Over time, however, they were all demolished to make way for apartment buildings.

Ads trumpeted the opening of Highbourne Gardens in early October 1928, now listed as 1922 N. Highland, a six-story, 48-unit luxurious apartment building taking advantage of its location near a streetcar line and only blocks from Hollywood Boulevard. Ads for the proposed concrete and steel building promoted high end amenities like lush furnishings, private swimming pool, and panoramic views in a structure claimed to also be fireproof and soundproof. Furnished and unfurnished rooms featured frigidaires, dishwashers, and central air and heat along with daily maid service, and with a view towards downtown Los Angeles for some. The rooftop pool featured private and public bungalows for those enjoying its waters, while the building contained a card room, lavish lobby, solarium, lounge, switchboard, and penthouses. For many years, it would be considered one of the upscale apartment houses in Hollywood.

Thanks to its upscale appointments and perfect location, Highbourne Gardens attracted show business residents, high and low. Such people as upcoming star Francis X. Bushman, Jr., Paramount silent film star Ethel Clayton, child actress Cora Sue Collins, “Mayor of Harlem” Willie Bryant, Ann Blyth’s mother, and Mark Twain’s granddaughter, all resided in the building. In 1932, Spanish painter Fernando de Toledo also lived there to sketch and paint for several months before visiting New York for an exhibition of his works. de Toledo found the vivid colors and “spirit of youth” in Hollywood inspirational.

As new, more up-to-date buildings arose around Hollywood, the development’s reputation suffered as it experienced deferred maintenance. By the mid-1940s, new owners updated the apartment building’s name, changing it to Highland Towers and operated it as a hotel. By the early 1990s, the structure had reverted to apartments and fell into further disrepair, with residents complaining to the city and asking for updates and corrections. The name eventually saw the “s” removed as the building was rechristened the Highland Tower.

Over time, what little survived of the Highbourne Gardens bungalow complex deteriorated as newer apartment and condo buildings arose around it, eventually to be demolished. In 1981, a 53-unit condo complex arose on the site, only to fall into foreclosure by 1996, with the units going up for auction.

Real estate development is all about taking a property and increasing its value by demolishing what is there and building something bigger and grander, thereby “improving” the site. Single family homes and older, smaller apartment buildings give way to larger and more up-to-date buildings, providing more housing but not necessarily giving beauty or improvement to the site for the community. While none of the sweet Highbourne Gardens bungalow complex survives at its real estate evolution over the years, at least the classic Highland Tower bulding still survives, exuding graceful beauty 96 years after construction.

Clara Bow’s former rental at 7576 Hollywood Blvd. is on the market for $1.3 million.

Hollywood homes can show a star’s character just as much as any candid portrait. Ostentatious or understated, hip or homey, residences serve as a snapshot in time and place for their owners and society as well. Vivacious flapper Clara Bow remained a vulnerable little girl at heart, always seeking out a comfortable nest to create the safe, happy home life denied her growing up. For a short time she rented 7576 Hollywood Blvd., a small, lovely Spanish Colonial abode now up for sale and under threat.

Born into poverty and degradation July 29, 1905, Clara Bow endured hunger, misery, and abuse in a Dickensian childhood bereft of normal family pleasures. Looking for a chance of escape, she entered Brewster Publication’s Fame and Fortune Contest announced in Motion Picture magazine in January 1921. Her instinctive talent and energetic personality overwhelmed the judges, who awarded her first prize after a series of contests. Bubbly and effervescent in front of the cameras, her piercing, sensitive eyes revealed the true sadness underneath.

Clara Bow, 1925.

Over the next five years, Bow endured exploitation and abuse from all sides as she painstakingly developed her acting career, learning to relax and be herself in front of the camera. Studio executives and industry insiders took advantage of her insecurity, naivete, and need to please as she gained bigger and better parts, before she finally gained stardom after signing with Paramount in 1926 and becoming cinema’s embodiment of the flapper and the“It” girl, full of spice, naughtiness, and sensuality onscreen.

Bow frankly admitted to a magazine how much her real personality captured the dichotomy of the characters she inhabited onscreen, raucous and passionately grabbing at life. “All the time the flapper is laughin’ and dancin’, there’s a feelin’ of tragedy underneath. She’s unhappy and disillusioned, and that’s what people sense. That’s what makes her different.”

Bow’s choice of residence throughout this trying time reflected her rising career as well as her hopes for finding home. Raised in a Brooklyn tenement hovel, Bow rented apartments and small houses after arriving in Los Angeles, like most film newcomers looking to break in. She first lived in the classy but comfortable Hillview Apartments at 6533 Hollywood Blvd., owned by future Paramount boss and colleague Jesse L. Lasky, and later rented small but elegant homes that offered a sense of comfort and normalcy.

In 1924, a year or two before gaining true stardom, Bow rented 7576 Hollywood Blvd. for a few months, a three-bedroom, 2-bath Spanish Colonial on the border between Hollywood and West Hollywood. While small, the home exhibited the elegant features of its type – wrought iron, mouldings, tilework, and fine wood floors, small but classy, perfect for someone finding her place in a bustling new world.

Clara Bow, 1921.

The home’s original builder and owner was also a woman independently making a place for herself in society. Born as Mary Ines in Indiana in 1869, she married Baptist minister and eventual head of Los Angeles’ Baptist Mexican mission, Rev. L. E. Troyer, and served happily and faithfully with him bringing God’s word to others. Mary would serve as a missionary in Puerto Rico and Puebla, Mexico for a short time in in the mid-teens before returning to Los Angeles to work with Hispanic residents and immigrants as the “mother of Mexican work” per local newspapers. The couple worked in ministry and raising their family until 1917 when Rev. Troyer passed away at the age of 48.

Even before his death, Mary Troyer began participating in real estate ventures, building small properties as investment units. In 1913, she constructed a three-story apartment building on East Fourth Street. Troyer sold property in 1915 and purchased another small apartment building before constructing a bungalow court in 1919. Realizing Hollywood’s exploding growth due to the burgeoning motion picture industry, she built a duplex at 1862-1864 Vista Del Mar in 1920 before constructing a duplex at 7568 Hollywood Blvd. in 1921, living in one of the units. Troyer constructed 7576 Hollywood Blvd. in 1922 as an additional investment property, and continued her building spree through the mid-1920s, sometimes with her three sons serving as contractors under their business, the Troyer Brothers.

The simple $6,500 home at 7576 Hollywood Blvd. offered renters a chance to move up in the world and live graciously. Filled with quality touches like tile, fireplace, wood floor, and even a nice backyard, the cottage offered a cozy nest for young couples or aspiring singles. For Clara it was a step up and hope for better things as her career took off and the parts grew in size and quality. She lived here with her father and Artie Jacobsen for five months as in 1924, before moving on to the more secluded and elegant Canyon Drive home of Bessie Love, which she rented.

7576 Hollywood Blvd. is now for sale, listed as an investment opportunity in advertisements with a property on Curson Avenue behind it, a stepping stone to wealth just as Mary Troyer saw it in 1922. Sitting surrounded by apartment buildings, the lonely little cottage represents a place where Clara Bow envisioned greater opportunities and possibly a happy family life beckoning to her. What will be the home’s future?

Sam “FU” Zell portrait in an automaton titled Zell 2012. Bidding starts at $500.

Sam “FU” Zell was man of unusual tastes. That is, if he had any taste, which he didn’t, based on my experience during the debacle of the Zell years at the Los Angeles Times.

“Crude, gaudy and tacky,” seem to sum up Mr. “FU” Zell (as The New York Times would refer to him) and that’s an apt description of a collection of his weird automata (I would add “malfunctioning”) that’s coming up for auction later this month. They span the years 1995 to 2015 with a gap at 2008, perhaps because Mr. “FU” Zell was too busy telling his newly acquired Tribune employees “FU.”

Mr. “FU” Zell  died last year, much to the world’s improvement. His widow, Helen, is a generous donor to the arts groups in Chicago –and I should note that although the Los Angeles Times during the Zell years rarely contributed to the local arts organizations, it gave sumptuously to their counterparts in CHICAGO.

Such was the wit and wisdom of Mr. “FU” Zell, who memorably told an employee during a meeting of the recently acquired Orlando Sentinel: “FU.”

But that’s a gripe for another time. I’m here to dance on the grave of the “Grave Dancer” (or “Saltator Sepulchri” because nothing adds class to crappy artwork like a Latin phrase).

Mr. “FU” Zell commissioned these grotesque, tacky little automata to give to his friends (and apparently he had some, which surprises me. I suppose he only told them “FU” occasionally). Some of his “friends” have been selling off these little gizmos, and you can bid on them at an auction May 19. Most of them are inoperable and require power bricks that aren’t provided, to which Mr. “FU” Zell would undoubtedly say “FU” if he hadn’t died last year.

Based on the auction’s description and the YouTube videos, the automata apparently feature a recording of Mr. “FU” Zell, and a musical selection.

As always, an item should be evaluated thoroughly before submitting a bid.

The Bureaucratic Shuffle, 1995, possibly the first of Sam “FU” Zell’s gifts to his “friends.”

The Internet being what it is, there are even YouTube videos of some of these amusing little items. Sadly, an artist doesn’t seem to be credited and I cannot imagine why.

Until Mr. “FU” Zell’s mechanical amusements receive the catalogue raisonné they surely deserve, here is a handy field guide:

Let’s Do It, 1996.

Liquid Real Estate, 1997.

The Whole World In Our Hands, 1998.

The Emperor Has No Clothes, 1999.

No Free Lunch, 2000.

The Emperor Has No Clothes, 1999, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

No Free Lunch, 2000, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

The Engine That Can, 2001, up for auction with bidding starting at $500. Absolutely grotesque. I can imagine the unidentified artist going out for a couple of drinks before embarking on Zell’s dictated design.

Get Over It, 2002, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Wired Exports, 2003, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

This Land, 2004, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

The Theory of Relativity, 2005, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Sarbox, 2006, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Confusion, 2007, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Survival of the Fittest, 2009, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Think It Over, 2010, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Tender Credibility, 2011, up for auction with bidding starting at $500. Grotesque, isn’t it?

Sam Zell, 2012, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Consensus, 2013, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

How Low Can You Go? 2014, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

View From Above, 2015, up for auction with bidding starting at $500.

Note: This is an encore post from 2012.

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.