Quote:
Originally Posted by GaylordWilshire
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Back in October 2011
GaylordWilshire posted about the Jeffries family in Cypress Park. Above is a picture of their home, which if I'm not mistaken once stood at the NW corner of Figueroa & Cypress Street. But there was another house nearby, at 901 Isabel Street, that I always knew as the home of Jim Jeffries himself. When I first discovered it back in the early 90's, it wasn't in the best of shape and was downright creepy, a Classical Revival mansion standing atop a small hill, with a commanding yet dark presence. Back then, it looked something like this pic I found on Flickr:
Flickr
Well, according to local historian
Charles Fisher, this was never the Jim Jeffries house (Fisher acknowledges it has been referred to in numerous publications as such, however erroneously). It was designed by John C. Austin of LA City Hall & Griffith Observatory fame, built in 1905 for restaurateur Max Nickel. It has come to be known as the Nickel-Leong house because it was sold to Jeung Leong in 1936, whose son, Gilbert Leong, designed many of the buildings in LA's new Chinatown. Here's a picture of the Nickel-Leong mansion in somewhat better days, looking like a transplant from a Southern plantation:
Charles Fisher
I drove by several months ago (totally would've taken pictures, had I discovered
Noirish Los Angeles back then!) and found that, while not in horrible shape, it could certainly benefit from a renovation. But, unlike so many of LA's great architectural gems, at least it still stands.