No. 190 - Kaiser House and Carriage House

Kaiser House and Carriage House
c. 1889
1411 Carroll Avenue – map
Declared: 5/3/78

Yet another Victorian beauty on Carroll Avenue, this Eastlake-style house sits just to the west of HCM No. 188, the Winston House. Unlike with that home, we don’t know who the architect behind this landmark was, but we do know who the first owners were.

Frank Kaiser was a 48-year-old widower in Louisville in 1888 when he up and married 18-year-old Ms Emma Vogel. They headed to California the next year, moving into this home in the new neighborhood of Angelino Heights (or Angeleno Heights). Soon after, they were joined by another pair of newlyweds, Joseph Mergen (Frank’s nephew) and his wife, Carrie (Emma’s sister). Here’s a photo of the couple of couples, taken in the early 1890s. We’ve got the Mergens on the left, Kaisers on the right.

Well, having a bride thirty years his junior had its effect on poor Frank – he died a few years after landing in L.A., in 1892, at the age of 53. And being married to Frank’s nephew was bad luck for Carrie, too. She died right around the same time, she just 21 years old. Other relatives came to stay at 1411, including Emma’s mom. Emma lived until in 1919, and Grandma Vogel died two years later. Will Vogel then bought the house.

The designs on either side, flanking the central burst, don't match those in the black and white shot, do they?

Below is a clip of an 1894 Sanborn fire insurance map. You can see HCM Nos 188 and 189, side by side. At the left there’s also No. 191. And, to the right, is our old friend, No. 75, the Pinney House. Finally, in the upper-left, on Kellam Avenue, is No. 321, the Eastlake Inn. Let’s see if I’m still blogging in 2010 when this one comes up.

At the time of the Kaiser House’s declaration in 1978, the Safer family had been living there for thirty-three years. They were the house’s third owners, buying it from a man named or not named Holland. It’s easy to see why the home – with no huge exterior alterations (I miss the roof's ironwork, though) – was designated a city landmark. However, according to a file in the city’s Office of Historic Resources, “… the real inspiration for the nomination is the interior dining room in perfect condition with a wall & ceiling relief finish [sic] in sculptured fresco.” I don’t know if this means there was an exterior dining room.

The Kaiser Carriage House

All comedy aside, though. Comparing the pictures from a couple of weeks ago to the one taken nearly 120 years ago, you can see not much of the house has changed. The stone wall along the sidewalk is gone, of course, and the carriage house has been altered, but it seems every generation of homeowner has done its best in preserving this landmark. (You can see more changes in its next-door neighbor, the Winston House.)

Up next: Luckenbach House

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No. 189 - Winston House

Winston House
1889 – Joseph Cather Newsom
1407 Carroll Avenue – map
Declared: 5/3/78

Joseph Cather Newsom built this house in 1889 for John B. Winston, agent of the Bradbury Estate, engineer. That’s according to the Picture Album of Historic Angelino Heights. Also from that 1978 booklet:

“This residence patterned on Newsom’s “El Capitan” design has an interesting angular bay and two original art glass windows. The inside foyer features hand-carved columns and graceful hall bench. A sliding redwood door with a pressed ivory motif separates the two front parlors, each of which contain two Victorian mantelpieces with decorative ceramic tiles. Also note the Lincrusta-Walton wainscot in the dining room and hallway. Both bathroom and kitchen retain some of the original Victorian built-in cupboards. Of particular interest is the Victorian butler’s pantry in the dining room.”

I like this house real well, and it’s one of my favorites on this historic street. This post, however, is going to take a slight detour and center around the local architecture of J.C. Newsom, designed alone or with his brother, Samuel.

Joseph Cather (1857-1930) and Samuel Newsom (1848-1908) were two of eight boys in a twelve-child Canadian clan. Born in Montreal, the brothers moved with the family to the California Bay Area in the early 1860s.

Samuel Newsom

Samuel and Joseph trained in their elder brothers’ architectural firm on San Francisco’s Montgomery Street. The pair began their own partnership in 1878 with an office in Oakland, then a main office at 504 Kearny Street in San Francisco. They built their most famous building, the Carson Mansion in Eureka, CA, between 1884 and 1886.

Joseph Cather Newsom

J.C. came south in 1886 to take advantage of the southland’s real estate boom, setting up the firm’s branch office at 108 North Main Street. By January 1888, the Newsom Brothers gave up their partnership, with Samuel retaining control of the Northern California offices while J.C. kept the L.A. branch. That same year, Joseph, living around this time at 816 West 9th Street, moved his office to the brand new Bryson-Bonebrake Building on the northwest corner of Second and Spring Streets, a building designed by the Newsom Brothers. Looking at the year and a half or so the brothers were in business together with the L.A. branch open, it’s pretty tough to determine what in SoCal is the work of the brothers versus J.C. alone. I think J.C. would like us to believe most of the Newsom Brothers area work during that time is his. Anything post-split, I’ll gladly give the nod to J.C. alone.

Soon, though, the boom had slowed considerably, and J.C. returned to San Francisco in 1889/1890 as an independent architect. Perhaps because of a commission or the promise of work, the younger Newsom moved to Philadelphia in late 1896 or early 1897. Sometime after the turn of the century, he returned to the Bay Area and went back in partnership with his brother and, at one point, with him and his nephew, Samuel’s son, Sidney B. By 1903, J.C. was back in Los Angeles, where he worked until late in 1906 – sometime after the San Francisco Earthquake – when he returned to the Bay Area. He continued to design buildings off and on until his death on June 5, 1930.

Now, today, we have no way of knowing how many buildings for which the Newsom Brothers were responsible – alone and separately – for a few reasons. First, most of their records were destroyed in that 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire. Also, the brothers published several plan books throughout their careers. It’s likely there were untold houses built – maybe even around the world – using their designs, if not with their direct involvement. According to Harriet von Breton, the number of buildings in the Newsom output reached more than 650.

The San Dimas Hotel

As noted, J.C. Newsom originally relocated to Los Angeles to take advantage of the city’s first real-estate boom. New towns and developments were spring up all over the southland. As a matter of course, the first building put up in any of these locations would invariably be a hotel. The brothers began working with a series of developers, creating as many as twenty-eight of these boomtown hotels locally. Just about none of them exists today, and most of us never got the chance to see such Newsom hotels including the Hotel Glendale, the Mission Hotel in San Fernando, and the Burbank Villa Hotel. The sole remaining Newsom hotel is actually one of their first, the Sam Dimas Hotel, AKA the Walker House, currently being restored in San Dimas. (The San Dimas and Mission hotels busted early and were almost immediately converted into homes, the Glendale became a sanitarium while the Burbank Villa changed its name to the Santa Rosa.)

San Dimas Hotel close-up

Most of the buildings the Newsoms created were Victorian residences. We’ve already seen J.C.’s work at the Lewis and Sessions houses and possibly the home at 3537 Griffin Avenue. We’re also going to see the Fitzgerald House at Monument No. 258 (it’s for sale, folks!) and, much later on, No. 565, the Charles Greenshaw House. They’re still standing, so go see them.

Sadly, most of their homes have long been demolished. This includes the Bunker Hill mansions, of course, like the Hildreth and, maybe the L.A. building I most wish were still around, the Bradbury Mansion. (J.C. may or may not have also built the Hill’s Melrose Hotel.) Other L.A. Newsom homes you can’t visit? How about the residences for Messrs Shatto, Flint, Bryan, Cosby, Baker, Jevne, Garnsey, Loew, Boal, and Robinson?

Granada Hills home

As the 20th Century seemingly wouldn’t stop, Pacoima, of all places, had become noted for a pair of Newsom Victorians. One has been moved to Granada Hills (this home’s for sale, too!). The other, still standing on Judd Street, has been smothered in stucco.

Stuccoed in Pacoima

If you’re ever in Sierra Madre, you can see the brothers’ Pinney House. The front porch’s spindle work and swan’s neck pediment were taken from a house being demolished on Wilshire Boulevard in the 1930s and added to the house by a film crew.

Pinney House

Farther east, in Monrovia, there’s Idlewild, a home Samuel and J.C. built for General William Anderson Pile and his wife, Hannah Cain Pile. Legend has it Theodore Roosevelt spoke from the balcony. And, nearby the Pile House, stands the landmark Mill’s View, built for William Monroe, founder of Monrovia, as an 1887 wedding gift to his eldest son, Milton Monroe. Gebhard and Winter suggest this may be a Newsom house, but it's more likely the work of Solon I. Haas, who also designed the elder Monroe's home, the Oaks.

Idewild (top) and Mill's View (bottom)

By the time J.C. was serving his second stint in Los Angeles, the Mission Revival style had crept in his quiver, as can be seen in HCM No. 565. I wish his Ocean Park Bath House (1905) in Santa Monica were still around, but it’s not. What is around, though, is his 1904 home built for Mrs A.P. Posey near Chester Square, now known as the Severance House. It’s certainly got some Mission Revival elements.

Severance House

And, sadly, that’s all that remains locally of the work by Joseph Cather Newsom, both with his brother, Samuel, and solo. Of course, there may be others out there, undocumented and/or altered beyond recognition. All of these extant buildings I tracked with the help of Gebhard and Winter’s Los Angeles: An Architectural Guide (I used a 1994 edition – it includes two additional Newsom homes which have since bitten the dust).

Finally, I regret not plotting my photography schedule better. No matter where I went for the non-landmark Newsoms – Granada Hills, Pacoima, Sierra Madre, Monrovia, and West Adams – it turns out I and my camera were always looking into the face of the sun. I need to plan better.

Sources:

Newsom, Samuel and Joseph C. Newsom with introduction by David Gebhard Picturesque California Homes; a Volume of Forty Plates, Plans, Details and Specifications of Houses Costing from $700 to $15,000, and Adpated to Families Having Good Taste and Moderate Means. Hennessey & Ingalls, Inc. 1978 Los Angeles; Facsimile of 1st ed., San Francisco: Samuel and Joseph C. Newsom, 1884

Newsom, Joseph C. with foreword by R.L. Samsell; introduction by Jeanne C. Bennett Artistic Building and Homes of Los Angeles Calliope Press 1981 Los Angeles; Facsimile of 1st ed., Los Angeles: J. C. Newsom, 1888

Gebhard, David, Harriette Von Breton, Robert W. Winter Samuel and Joseph Cather Newsom: Victorian Acrhitectural Imagery in California 1878- 1908 USCB Art Museum, Santa Barbara, April 4 trough May 6, 1979 and The Oakland Museum, Oakland, May 22 through August 12, 1979

Up next: 1411 Carroll Avenue Residence and Carriage House

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No. 188 - U.S.S. Los Angeles Naval Monument

U.S.S. Los Angeles Naval Monument
1977 – Terryle Smeed
John S. Gibson, Jr Park, Harbor Boulevard a 6th Street, San Pedro – map
Declared: 5/3/78

I wonder if the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission noted the incongruity of the same-day designations of Historic-Cultural Monuments No. 187, the Korean Bell and Belfry of Friendship, and No. 188, the monument of the heavy cruiser U.S.S. Los Angeles (CA-135), which, just twenty-five years earlier, was under enemy fire in its second tour of duty in the Korean War.

The bits and pieces which make up Monument No. 188 are from the third of four U.S. Navy ships named the Los Angeles. The first Los Angeles was a 435-foot boat built in San Francisco and commissioned in August 1917. The second was an airship, 2R-3, christened in 1924 and scrapped eight years later. The fourth and current Los Angeles – U.S.S. Los Angeles SSN-688 – is a nuclear-powered submarine.

The U.S.S. Los Angeles (CA-135) memorialized at San Pedro’s L.A. Maritime Museum and Gibson Park was built with war bonds raised by the city and county of Los Angeles (we bought nearly $80.4 million worth of bonds in that drive, enough to pay for this ship plus four destroyers). Built in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, the 675-foot heavy cruiser was launched on August 20, 1944 with Irene Bowron, the wife of L.A. Mayor Fletcher Bowron, acting as the ship’s sponsor. The Los Angeles was commissioned on July 22, 1945, with Captain John A. Snackenberg in command.

The Los Angeles’s mainmast, anchors, mooring bits, and capstan cover.

After its commissioning, the ship had a brief training period near Cuba, returning to San Pedro from Guantanamo Bay in mid-October. It left California on December 8, 1945, and, after a stop at Pearl Harbor, arrived in Shanghai at the beginning of 1945. The Los Angeles, with a few changes of captain, was assigned to the 7th Fleet in the Shanghai and Hong Kong area. It was decommissioned April 9, 1948.

As the Korean War heated up, the Los Angeles, with Captain Robert N. MacFarlane, USN, in command, was recommissioned on January 27, 1951. After more training cruises and a stop at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, the big boat was off again to Pearl Harbor. It arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, at the end of May 1951, seeing action for the first time during the Korean War. The Los Angeles sailed to Inchon in early July, but, by December, the ship was back in Yokosuka where it was relieved by the U.S.S. Manchester. The U.S.S. Los Angeles returned to California on December 5.

See a video of the Los Angeles refueling at sea here.

The U.S.S. Los Angeles made its second Korean War tour of duty on October 9, 1952. In the spring of 1953, she suffered two rounds of hits in which a dozen men were wounded. Watch the men receive their Purple Heart in this film.

For five and a half years beginning in November 1953, the U.S.S. Los Angeles made six more deployments to the Far East on peace-keeping missions. Her last two cruises were in 1961 and 1962, returning to Long Beach in June 1963. The ship was decommissioned there on November 15, 1963, after which it entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet at San Diego.

The U.S.S. Los Angeles was stricken from Navy records in January 1974. She was scrapped the following year.

The U.S.S. Los Angeles bridge.

The U.S.S. Los Angeles Naval Memorial was dedicated on December 1, 1977, to the men and ships of the U.S. Navy. In Gibson Park, along with memorials to the fishing industry, the two longshoremen who were killed in a 1934 strike, and American merchant marine veterans, stands the Los Angeles’s mainmast, anchors, mooring bits, and capstan cover. The monument was laid out by Terryle Smeed.

The ship’s bell, removed during a 1960 overhaul, stands to the left of the L.A. Maritime Museum across the street, while a portion of its bow is to its right. Inside the museum, you’ll find all sorts of artifacts from the Los Angeles, including the boat’s bridge.

Please visit this web page, the work of Mr George Bell, for an extensive history, memorials, visitors’ log, and photograph and video collection of the U.S.S. Los Angeles. It’s where I took the black and white shot here as well as much of the information.

Up next: 1407 Carroll Avenue Residence

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No. 187 - Korean Bell and Belfry of Friendship

Korean Bell and Belfry of Friendship
1976 – Kim Se-jung
Angels Gate Park, Gaffey and 37th Streets, San Pedro – map
Declared: 5/3/78

Weighing nearly 18 ¾ tons, this twelve-foot tall bell was a gift of the South Korean government to commemorate the United States’ bicentennial. And not only did South Korea give us the bell, the country also sent over about three dozen workers to build the striking pavilion in which the bell rests today. First, Taekwondo, then this.

Kim Se-jung designed the San Pedro landmark, known as the Friendship Bell, as a replica of the Divine Bell of King Songdok the Great (the 33rd king of Shilla, remember?). (That big bell, also known as the Emilie Bell or the Pongdoksa Bell, was built in A.D.771 and is today situated on the grounds of the Kyongju National Museum.)

“Bell of Friendship”

Our Los Angeles bell is an alloy of tin, copper, gold, and silver, with a pinch of phosphorous, but, unlike the 1,237-year-old Korean version, our bell lacks baby. The bell’s rim, almost twenty-four-feet in circumference, is banded by Korea’s national flower, the Rose of Sharon, which really isn’t even a rose if you want to know the truth. To mark the friendship of the two countries, four sets of two figures – the Goddess of Liberty and a Korean spirit – are also engraved on the bell. While the four goddesses are holding torches, the spirits are bearing the Korean flag, the Rose of Sharon, a laurel branch, and a dove of peace.

When the thirty-five Korean stonemasons (suk kongs), tile-setters (wha kongs), and carpenters came over from Seoul to work on the belfry, they brought with them 435 tons of stone, traditional blue tile, and other materials. Living in a pair of Fort MacArthur army barracks, the crew wound up working twelve to fourteen hours a day to finish up by dedication day.

The tanch’ong-styled bell pavilion is supported by a dozen columns, representing the twelve signs of the Oriental zodiac.

Located in Angels Gate Park on Fort MacArthur’s old Upper Reservation, the Friendship Bell is rung four times a year: July 4th; August 15th (Korean Independence Day); New Year's Eve; and sometime in September to celebrate Constitution week. Rather than being struck with a clapper, the Friendship Bell is rung with this wooden log:

The bell and belfry have got to be one of the youngest – if not the youngest – L.A. Historic-Cultural Monuments, having been declared an official landmark just nineteen months after its dedication on October 3, 1976.

The Korean Friendship Bell Information Center

When you visit HCM No. 187, right next to the Pacific Ocean, make sure you pop in the Korean Friendship Bell Information Center (above), also in Angels Gate Park.

Finally, the IMDb.com says you can see the Friendship Bell in 1995’s The Usual Suspects. I haven’t seen the movie since it came out, probably, so I don’t remember.

Source:

Hillinger, Charles “West Coast ‘Liberty Bell’” The Los Angeles Times Sep 16, 1976, p. C1

Up next: U.S.S. Los Angeles Naval Monument

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No. 186 - Morgan House (Harbor Area YWCA)

Morgan House (Harbor Area YWCA)
1918 – Julia Morgan
437 West 9th Street, San Pedro – map
Declared: 5/3/78

Shhh. Listen. Do you hear that? Do you know what that noise is? That’s the sound of architect Julia Morgan spinning in her Oakland grave.

Eh, maybe I’m being a little harsh. But, clearly, to a woman who had the reputation for being an ultra-perfectionist (she once ripped out some new tile work with her bare hands because it failed to meet her standards), she would not have been doing a jig over the state in which a series of remodels has left her board and batten building in the San Pedro.

One of most important women in the history of American architecture, Julia Morgan was born in San Francisco in 1872, soon moving with her family to Oakland. In 1904, she earned the honor of being the first woman licensed as a California architect. This was shortly after the completion of two of her first major projects, assisting John Galen Howard in building (her alma mater) UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre and Hearst Memorial Mining Building.

This 1918 Craftsman building was one of five local YWCA buildings designed by Morgan. You can still see her 1926 Hollywood Studio Club, landmark No. 175, and her gorgeous Pasadena YWCA stands empty and is slowly falling apart. Her 1925 Long Beach Italian Renaissance branch has been demolished. Finally, Morgan’s Riverside YWCA from 1929 still stands, but as the Riverside Art Museum. Morgan designed YWCAs in California, Utah, Arizona, and Hawaii. Julia Morgan’s affiliation with the YWCA began when Phoebe Apperson Hearst recommended her for the organization’s Asilomar summer conference center near Monterey. Asilomar’s first building, the Administration Building, opened in 1913. Morgan’s last major building for the Young Women’s Christian Association was the Residence on San Francisco’s Nob Hill.

As for this 1918 Craftsman building, completed right around the time she began working on what would become her most famous project, it’s one of several “hostess houses” Morgan designed during World War I. Located near military camps, these buildings served as meeting places for soldiers and their families. A women’s group, the Warwork Council, handled the initial planning and fund-raising. The 9th Street land cost $4,800.

In her book on the architect, Sara Holmes Boutelle says the San Pedro facility, one of just two remaining hostess houses created by Morgan (remaining as of 1988, that is), is a lot like Asilomar’s Administration Building, “featuring open trusses, fireplaces, and a balcony over the service and clubroom areas at either end of the long main room.” Also included were classrooms and a swimming pool (since filled in). It was chartered as an official YWCA after the war, on October 6, 1920.

Compare the two shots below. The upper is from L.A.’s Department of City Planning website. It dates from 1921. Was the hill’s removal to gain street-level access? Or maybe due to a street-widening? I don’t like the result. And who wouldn’t prefer those original windows and door? Some remodeling architect whose taste is in his mouth, I guess.

Today, Julia Morgan’s San Pedro landmark is still being used as a YWCA, offering child care, teen programs, women’s health and family services, and programs on racial justice. I stopped by on a Sunday when the place was closed. It’s a safe bet I would’ve been stopped from wandering around taking pictures of the women’s club's indoors (“Hi! I’m here for a peak at your open trusses!”), but I still would’ve liked to have seen what’s left of the ninety-year-old interior.

Source:

Boutelle, Sara Holmes Julia Morgan, Architect Abbeville Press Publishers 1988 New York

McKinney, Betty "Y.W.C.A. – The Julia Morgan House" The Shoreline San Pedro Bay Historical Society Jun 1989

Wadsworth, Ginger Julia Morgan: Architect of Dreams Lerner Publications Company 1990 Minneapolis

Wilson, Mark A. Julia Morgan: An Architect of Beauty Gibbs Smith 2007 Layton, Utah

Up next: Korean Bell and Belfry of Friendship

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