Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 5002387)

I've always loved Neutra's Sternberg house.
It's a bit odd for a Neutra house with it's moat and curving metal (aluminum?) wall.

Years ago I had lunch in a Neutra house in the Hollywood Hills.
Ever since, I've been trying to figure out which one it was.
GaylordWilshire, do you happen to know how many Neutra houses there are in the Hollywood Hills?

Originally Posted by jhny12 (Post 5005273)

Hi,
I recently found this forum & think its great! I've always been fascinated by LA, but have only been there once. I'm also into photography, so needless to say I've spent a lot of time lurking here:)
Everyone here is very informative, so I'm hoping you guys can help me out, but its a long shot. The video "Please Read The Letter" by Robert Plant & Allison Krause is filmed in a beautiful old house. The only info I've been able to find is that it was built in 1905 in Southern Los Angeles. There is never a full shot of the exterior, although there are roman statues in the yard.

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 4998699)

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/assets...34B7C3F89?v=hrUSC

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics24/00061823.jpgLAPL


One of great Victorian houses on West Adams Street (the "Boulevard" appellation was apparently adopted sometime in the '20s, perhaps in a vain effort to secure the diminishing cachet of the area as the Hancock Park and Westside districts developed) was the Russell Judson Waters house at #900, next door to the magnificent and still-extant (but for how long?) Second Church of Christ Scientist. Waters, by the way, was the founder of Redlands, and, later, a U.S. Congressman. The pictures above don't really show the fence, perhaps an enlargement of the original, comprised of iron, a low stone wall, and stone gateposts (though there are Bison Archive shots of the house in the "Images of America" book West Adams that do). But mercifully we have remnants of 900 West Adams, including the Portland Street side of the fence and another set of gateposts that match those lost at the front. And--the carriage house still stands, now addressed 2625 Portland. I've seen it described as a miniature echo of the main house--as you can see in these pictures, the barn does indeed have a turret with a roof matching the big house. The first picture puts one in mind of the Addams Family tv show of the '60s, doesn't it? According to some sources, the Victorian house used as reference for the show once stood on Adams, though this was not it. I'm trying to discover the true identity of the Addams Adams house (reportedly demolished in the '60s)--I love an architectural mystery. The top half of the tv house was a matte painting, making it even harder to trace. Anyway, it's not a cure for cancer, but after all, somebody's got to do this reseach....


http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics51/00075487.jpgLAPL


http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TK...90345%20PM.jpgGoogle Street View


http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TK...90634%20PM.jpgGoogle Street View


http://lh5.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TK...81610%20PM.jpgGoogle Street View

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5005404)

I've got to turn this window off...I can't get anything else done. But of course I can't resist answering. That's the Beckett house at 2218 S. Harvard Blvd:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TK...o/beckett1.jpgBig Orange Landmarks


http://lh3.ggpht.com/_zXN_GwdMYMo/TK...0/beckett2.jpgBig Orange Landmarks

I'll let the erstwhile Mr. Floyd B. Bariscale take over from here:

http://bigorangelandmarks.blogspot.c...residence.html

I have to say that the interior looks great, or at least it does in the moody video lighting. The video is a must-see tour of what appears to be a seriously endangered house. If only its airy high-ceilinged spaces, with outside light coming in from all four sides, would inspire someone with a little cash to rescue it. (Hello Robert? Alison?) The scenes of exterior dilapidation are what tipped me off. Great video, and great song, btw.

Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire (Post 5006517)

:previous:

Jeff-- I will have to take a look at Curse of the Cat People again--I couldn't find any movie stills of the house, but I see that the Waters house is listed as a location for the film on IMDB. It definitely fits a movie like Curse. Somewhere along the line I've seen the Capen house, which was at 818 West Adams just east of the Waters house, erroneously listed as Curses's locale. They're not dissimilar in massing. Here's a picture of that house, apparently demolished sometime in the early '40s:

Among the interesting things about the Waters house when it was filmed in 1943/44 was a wonderful massive stone wall topped with decorative iron fencing and an impressive entranceway that ran along the sidewalk in front of the house. The yard then was wildly overgrown with ferns (possibly added to increase the spooky atmosphere) and the set decorator (I presume) added stone griffons (sp?) flanking the entrance steps. There was a vine-covered collonade approaching the right of the house.
There was a shot of a tower where the old lady calls down, but this was clearly filmed at another house, probably because the fronds of the vast Ivy-covered Canary Palm Tree would probably had been visible in any shot taken above the second story (since the house was supposed to be in a small NY state town.)
Again, it just makes one heartsick to think that magnificent, atmospheric old houses and buildings like this were demolished by the hundreds, many at the same time that Bunker Hill was bulldozed.
The Capen house is indeed a beauty, and has some similarities to the Waters house

http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics24/00061683.jpgLAPL
The Capen house, 818 West Adams: note the zanja in front. It ran on the south side of Adams
west from Figueroa and was decommissioned in 1901.


What is sort of interesting about the Capen house is that the porch entrance, with its elaborate scrolls, survives to the northeast in Sierra Madre, on the front of the Pinney House (architect: Joseph Cather Newsom). At least, that is my contention--some sources, including Gebhard and Winter, say that the entrance came from a house that once stood on Wilshire. There were, however, no high (by which I mean seriously turreted) Victorian houses built on the original westward-extending Wilshire--its development really didn't get going until the very end of the Victorian era. There were some on Orange Street, closer to downtown east of Westlake Park, which later became Wilshire in the '30s, but still I am of the opinion that the Capen porch entrance was the one installed on the Pinney house. (See what you think by comparing these pictures.) Producers of the 1942 Barbara Stanwyck movie The Great Man's Lady chose the Pinney house as a location, but wanted a fancier porch--apparently the Capen was being torn down and its entrance was recruited. (My guess is that other spindlework from the Capen was used to complete the new porch or else duplicated by studio carpenters to do the job.)


http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics24/00061690.jpgLAPL
Closeup of the Capen--note the entrance and the spindles in the arch.


http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics24/00061679.jpgLAPL
Another shot of the Capen. Note one of the six-globe streetlights that were installed in the West Adams
district beginning in 1903. The LAPL dates this photo 1941, so neither the house or the lamps have long
to live. Also note the post-zanja fire hydrant.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/...95c9966a_z.jpgKansas Sebastian
The Pinney house, Sierra Madre.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/...d2bbafaa_z.jpgBig Orange Landmarks
The Pinney entrance--a far-flung remnant of West Adams (IMHO).


http://jpg3.lapl.org/pics13/00026485.jpgLAPL
Notice the similarity of balcony ironwork on the Hildreth house (above), which stood on Bunker Hill, and on the Capen. Both the On Bunker Hill website and Floyd B. Bariscale of Big Orange Landmarks cite J. C. Newsom as designer of the Hildreth--so I'm wondering if he also did the Capen. As I mentioned above, Newsom designed the Pinney house. Although the Pinney was originally of a plainer style (similar to the architect's San Dimas Hotel), and though I don't think the flamboyant Capen porch is an especially good architectural fit for it, I guess it's something that there is the possibility of Newsom having done both buildings.

Originally Posted by ethereal_reality (Post 5011257)

Below: Buena Vista St. from Bellevue Ave. (later Sunset Blvd. now Cesar Chavez Avenue) in 1887.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/575...stastfroms.jpg
usc digital archive