No. 216 - Hall Residence

Hall Residence
1887
917 Douglas Street – map
Declared: 6/6/79

Angelino Heights – originally spelled Angeleno Heights, with an ‘e’ – was first developed by two men: William W. Stilson and Everett E. Hall. Having bought the land from Victor Beaudry and his partners (Victor Heights was right next door), the duo filed for subdivision on March 19, 1886. Stilson would be the money man while promotion would be Hall’s territory. Stilson built his thirty-room mansion on the northwest corner of East Edgeware Road and Carroll Avenue. It’s still there, too, but a modernization from half a century ago has rendered the home unrecognizable. Hall and his wife, Nellie, initially moved into a place close by on Edgeware, but very soon after settled into this house on Douglas Street (then called Waters Street). Unlike the Stilson mansion, it remains much more authentic (if in need of a paint job) and is Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 216.

Hall, from Ionia, Michigan, was an attorney and president of the Los Angeles and Pacific Railway Company. When he moved to this future landmark his estate stretched from Kellam to Edgeware. Included on the property was Hall’s carriage house. Though still in the same spot, the carriage house now belongs to 1417 Kellam Avenue around the corner. It’s HCM No. 166.

From L.A.’s Department of City Planning website.

The two-story house is Eastlake in design and features an Oriental fret pattern along with its L-shaped porch. And if posting the year of construction on the side of your home were a law in L.A., it’d make things a whole lot easier for bloggers who list the year of construction on the line after the address.

Hall fell on hard times shortly after moving into the house. He began selling off chunks of his property, then the home itself. Subsequent residents of 917 Douglas included members of the Heim Brewing Company’s Heim family (another Heim, Ferdinand, owned HCM No. 77 nearby on Carroll Avenue), future Glendale bigshots Leslie C. Brand and Daniel Campbell, and Ida Millard, sister of Everett Hall and widow of Spencer Millard, Lt Governor of California (also from Ionia, Michigan). And a contemporary city directory tells us widows Amelia M. Knox and Helen Marmion were living there in 1915.

Some more information with which to stymie your enemies: besides through the city landmark, Everett Hall and his family live on through a few street names in and around Angelino Heights. Allison Avenue is named for Hall’s younger brother, and Marion Avenue for a daughter who died in infancy. And there’s nearby Everett Place, Everett Street, and Everett Park. (Wallace and Carroll took the names of Stilson sons.)

Sources:

“Spencer C. Millard Dead: A Farmer’s Son Who Became California’s Lieutenant Governor.” The New York Times; Oct. 26, 1895, p. 9

Los Angeles City Directory 1915 Los Angeles Directory Company, Los Angeles, CA

Morales, T.M. “Neighborhood ‘Dandy’ now Disguised ‘Victorian’” Parkside Journal Oct 3, 1979, p. 1

An Album of Significant Homes in Century-Old Angelino Heights 1987 The Carroll Avenue Restoration Foundation

Morales, Tom Angelino Heights Preservation Plan – Section 4.1 History of Angelino Heights; June 10, 2004 p .9

Up next: Wicks Residence