View Single Post
  #23503  
Old Posted Sep 5, 2014, 11:35 PM
Tetsu Tetsu is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 180
Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelRyerson View Post
No, I don't think so. I don't see anything on the vacant lot on the NE corner of 4th and Grand Avenue in the picture of the model you included in your post.
Madame Hershey had her house split in half in 1906 (at about the time she had taken up residence in, and was in negotiations to buy, the Hollywood Hotel
from Whitley) in order to move it to the new resting place at the 4th Street stub overlooking Flower Street but I've found no evidence she left any part of
it at 4th and Grand. I've always assumed it had to be split in half to make the move feasible, the house in one piece being too unwieldy. In fact, in images
dating from at least 1911 I find a wholly empty lot at NE 4th and Grand across which we can get a clear view of the Brunson. Certainly by this time Almira
Hershey had been living up in the Hollywood Hotel for several years.


Hershey residence, 4th Street and Grand Avenue, 1893

Exterior view of Almira Parker Hershey's two-story Victorian Gothic style home located on the northeast corner of 4th Street and S. Grand Avenue on
Bunker Hill. Built at a cost of around $50,000 and designed by architects Curlett & Eisen, the Heshey Mansion was completed in 1888. In 1906, Almira
Hershey had this home moved to 750 W. Fourth Street and commissioned architects C.F. Skilling and Otto H. Neher to split it in half to turn it into an
apartment building. After the apartment building opened in 1907, it was named the Castle Towers, reminiscent of the structure's "castle-like features."
The Castle Towers Apartments sat on the stub end of 4th Street, on the south side, overlooking Flower Street, wedged behind the Barbara Worth ne
Briggs Apartments. At 750 W. 4th this put them across the street from Margrethe Mather's studio in the Hildreth carriage house at 715.
Thanks for clarifying (thanks to HossC as well). I've had the Hershey house pictured completely wrong in my mind this whole time - I always thought it was at the NW corner for some reason (don't know why when you can clearly see the Rose house to the right, and therefore SE corner, in the 1893 pic). Part of the confusion is in the house that did stand at the NW corner. It was in a similar sort of Moorish-Art Nouveau-Richardsonian Romanesque style and, judging by its appearance, could conceivably have been a later remodel of the Hershey house (sort of). I'm talking about this house:

LAPL

So, I've now realized that I know nothing about the house at the NW corner of 4th & Grand. Can anyone fill me in?
Reply With Quote