Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2
Thx for the reminder HossC of the original Hotel Californian.
As that linked KCET article noted, there's always a "before" the before:
oldhomesoflosangeles
This hybrid-style home was built circa 1906 for Willett J and Mary Hole. It was numbered 1907 W 6th Street. The couple's only child, Agnes, married one of the Rindge sons, Samuel.
By 1910, there were still no close neighbors and it remained that way into the 20s. The grounds of the residence took up the entire future 150' x 150' footprint of the Hotel Californian (and 50' x 150' more to the north for the carriage house & drive). Four city lots in all. In a 1921 permit for a new bath, Mr Hole stated the house was 40' x 70', but it looks bigger:
baist, 1910, plate 29
The Hotel Californian was permitted in 1924 (the architect was Edward Butler Rust). The neon came in 1927. The hotel was demolished in 1995.
21 years a vacant lot:
google maps
Paseo de Californian went up on the site in 2016. The neon is back from today.
(If all the images don't show, pardon me. Computer trouble)
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Edward Butler Rust is really interesting. He began his career with architectural pattern books, like "Ye Planry" which published the first "bungalow book." This he did from 1908-1913, and built some bungalows, and thereafter went into apartment house design; an early example being 1330 S Olive from 1914. A bunch of his still stand: 614 S St Andrews Place; Kingsley House at 9th & Kingsley; the Charlon at 821 Green Avenue; 1950 North Vermont; the
Windsor, and the
Roberta Apts in West Adams was just named an HCM. Rust also designed a bunch of residential, including the Art Deco
Linder House, and the residence of
Luther T. Mayo.
Mayo and Rust partnered on
the Californian. A developer named W F Holifield brought in Mayo to finance, build and lease the Californian, and Rust designed it. It was a wonder. It opened April 1, 1925—Abe Lyman and his Cocoanut Grove Orchestra played. The interior, as you could see in HossC's
image from yesterday, was Spanish-Mission. Here's another one:
lapl
Replete with tapestries, wrought-iron fixtures, polychromed beams & ceilings with lots of gold-leaf painted by none other than Heinsbergen. As I understand it, this was the last commission Heinsbergen had before he was famously contracted by Pantages to do twenty-two of his theaters.
Immediately after the Mayo & Rust collaboration on the Californian, Luther T. Mayo decides he's going to put up an apartment house himself, and sets Rust to work designing it, and from there we have the great
Los Altos.
Mayo of course goes on to build the
Château Élysée,
Villa Carlotta, etc.
It's a damn shame the Californian hit such skids late in life. By the late-80s it was vandalized to hell, the halls were knee-deep in trash, and roaches & rats ruled the place (of course, this was back when we had thirty murders a year in nearby MacArthur Park). The owner, Syed Ali, was no prize either, since he had no working fire doors or emergency exit signs. When the City condemned and tore it down they sent him a bill for the work!