by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The appearance in 1920 of John C. Brasfield’s The Architectural Digest can be seen as part and parcel of the phenomenal growth of greater Los Angeles and California, including the increasing sophistication of high-end architecture, commercial and residential, reflective of the burgeoning development in the region, especially of the elite class.
For this post, the featured artifact from the Homestead’s holdings is the third number of the quarterly’s seventh volume and looks to have appeared in November 1929 based on a Pasadena Post article, which observed that the publication, for the first time, featured a mausoleum, that in Sunnyside Cemetery in Long Beach.
The piece observed that the architect, Clarence Jay, was a Crown City resident and designed a chapel built as part of a mausoleum at Mountain View Cemetery in nearby Altadena and of which Bryan, as with Sunnyside, was the engineer and builder. The Post proudly noted that the goal was to make the Mountain View mausoleum “even mort [there is a French error, for sure!] beautiful” than its Long Beach counterpart.
By the way, this might be an opportune time to encourage those reading this post to consider joining us this weekend for a California Preservation Foundation Doors Open California tour of the Walter P. Temple Memorial Mausoleum at El Campo Santo Cemetery at the Homestead as we focus on the life and burial of Don Pío Pico. For $20 you can join our tour and many others in greater Los Angeles through the end of September.
Brasfield, who was an importer of suits and ran an ad agency before embarking on the magazine project, composed a foreword stating,
This issue of the Architectural Digest is dedicated to that group of artists and craftsmen who have built in the crumbled dust of the early California pueblos, might structures of steel and stone monuments of beauteous splendor, to house industry and commerce.
[In its digest reviewing works of the previous year], the beautiful photographic illustrations gracing these following pages stand as silent tributes to the architect, building contractor, artist, decorator and manufacturers of building materials.
The Architectural Digest takes great pride in dedicating this issue to these artists and craftsman who are responsible for making this publication the most beautiful book of its kind published.
The first structure featured has long been hailed as one of the Angel City’s Art Deco masterpieces, this being the Bullock’s department store branch on Wilshire Boulevard, which was then being developed into the “Miracle Mile” near the new tony subdivisions of Bel-Air, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills and the like and where the University of California, Los Angeles was just opening.
The work of the father-and-son team of John and Donald Parkinson, Bullock’s Wilshire was the acme of that style of architecture and the presentation of the ultimate shopping experience, especially, again, for those of the upper class of Los Angeles society. All of the contractors were listed and the baker’s dozen of photographs by the Mott studio show a stunning interior decoration harmonizing and amplifying the exterior, including remarkable murals, geometric patterning, furniture and fixtures, plastic sculpture work, painted glass ceilings and lacquered paneling.
In 1994, the abandoned structure, looted during the civil unrest of April 1992 and closed by Macy’s the following year, was purchased by Southwestern Law School, which spent a decade and close to $30 million on an adaptive reuse project that the Los Angeles Conservancy calls a “prime example” of that method of saving and repurposing historic structures.
As the organization notes, the structure “was the first department store in the country designed for the automobile, including an amazing motor court entrance and large window displays visible from Wilshire. After its closure, many original fixtures were removed and taken to I. Magnin stores throughout the state, but the Conservancy launched a campaign of repatriation and this was a resounding success with everything brought back and reinstalled for the law school’s reuse project.
Another Art Deco jewel in downtown Los Angeles and completed in 1929 in time to be featured in the magazine was the Richfield Oil Building, at Flower and Fifth streets and built for the company that evolved into modern ARCO (Atlantic Richfield) and got much of its phenomenal development in oil fields like Placentia in northeastern Orange County.
Designed by the prominent firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements, with O. Stiles Clements especially responsible, the building’s stunning main entrance and exterior figural details and other components, as well as an excellent view from about a block away taking in the staggered profile and massive neon sign surmounting the structure are featured.
One wishes, however, that more photos were taken and shown in the magazine, because the structure only survived for four decades and ARCO built what is now the City National Plaza—two phenomenal bronze elevator doors do however survive as a display on the ground floor and are available for public viewing. Author Martin Trumbull has a wealth of exterior and interior images well worth a visit to his site to enjoy.
A prior post here shared a “brochure de luxe” for the high-end residential apartment building simply called The Town House, located on Wilshire just a short distance east of Bullock’s Wilshire. The firm that built the impressive edifice included Edward L. Doheny, Jr., son of the oil magnate who parlayed a very modest investment in Los Angeles oil more than forty years before into a massive fortune, though the junior Doheny, owner of the astounding Greystone mansion, was killed by a secretary (and, perhaps, lover) earlier in 1929.
The issue contains no less than sixteen photos of The Town House, including from the adjacent Lafayette Park; detail of the entrance; the lobby; the entry into and interiors of the “Wedgewood Dining Room” and the adjoining “Green Room;” the “Junior League” and “Oak” rooms; the Anna Louise Beauty Salon; and views of a dining room and kitchenette in an apartment. The sumptuous ornamentation is on full display in these great images. The Los Angeles Conservancy also took on the preservation of this structure, which now contains 142 low-income, affordable-housing dwellings.
Though not nearly as well-known as the Bullock’s Wilshire, another impressive Art Deco structure and also still with us featured in The Architectural Digest is the Wilshire Boulevard store, not far east of the La Brea Tar Pits and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, of Desmond’s, a department store that traced its history back to 1862 Los Angeles, where and when Daniel Desmond opened his modest haberdashery. His business built up slowly until the great booms that came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the store rode the waves of prosperity as a men’s clothing store.
Designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and Company, the structure features an eye-catching nine-story central tower, as well as a graceful curving corner with very tall display windows. Another long-time Los Angeles retail institution, Silverwood’s department store, opened a branch in the edifice, also known as the Wilshire Tower when it was completed in spring 1929.
In addition to a full view of what was touted by the Conservancy as “the first Art Deco landmark tower on the Miracle Mile,” there are nine images of the interior, which was designed by the team of Joseph Feil and Bernhard Paradise, who also worked on the Bullock’s Wilshire, and, at Silverwood’s, William Jean Beauley.
Details of the “Charter House College Room;” women’s salon; and the entrance, corner display, and men’s, boys’ and furnishings departments of Silverwoods show more of the striking and evocative work, including finishes and remarkable furniture, especially that shown in the women’s salon at Desmond’s and the eye-catching carpeting at Silverwood’s.
There are just two images of the lobby of the Beverly-Wilshire Hotel, completed in 1928 on the site of the Los Angeles (Beverly Hills) Speedway on Wilshire across from the southern terminus of Rodeo Drive. The views show the staggering ornateness of the two-story space with incredibly intricate ceiling decorations, marble-clad pillars, a stunning chandelier and wall sconces and richly appointed furnishings of all types, not to mention massive rugs.
The architects were Albert H. Walker and Percy Eisen, the former handling the business end of the partnership while the latter conducted the design work (this was not atypical of firms.) The pair were among the busiest and best-known of the Angel City’s architects and worked on a large number of notable edifices, almost all of the commercial.
These include the Taft Building in Hollywood (1923); the Fine Arts Building (1927); the United Artists Theatre (1927); the Art Deco Oviatt Building (1928); and two structures in which they partnered with Walter P. Temple and others, these being the Great Republic Life Building (1923) and the National City Bank Building (1924)—these are among many others.
The architects also worked with Temple on most of his commercial construction projects in Alhambra, El Monte, San Gabriel and the Town of Temple (renamed Temple City in 1928), most of which survive, although some were greatly altered. When Walter and his wife Laura González decided to build a new house (La Casa Nueva) at the Homestead and worked on concepts with a contractor, they hired Walker and Eisen to complete working drawings. A plaque dedicating the house to Laura after her death in the early stages of construction listed the two as the architects, though Roy Seldon Price ended up finishing the house in 1927.
The Roaring Twenties was an era of monumental buildings on multiple fronts: civic structures (Los Angeles City Hall, the public library, the Coliseum), places of worship (including the second Immanuel Presbyterian Church, the topic of yesterday’s post, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple synagogue), the Auto Club’s headquarters, and so many more.
The Town House was mentioned above and a couple more prominent examples in this issue were the El Royale Apartments, built near the Wilshire Country Club in 1929 by an investment company and designed by William Douglas Lee and which is also Historic-Cultural Monument; and the well-known Long Beach landmark, the Villa Riviera, which had its grand opening early in the year and which was considered the second tallest building after Los Angeles City Hall upon completion. The Richard D. King designed French Gothic structure is also shown here in a general view, as well.
Previously discussed in a post here was the grand opening of the Catalina Casino, designed by Sumner M. Spaulding and Walter Webber and which made it debut at the end of May 1929. A great photo, perhaps taken from near the Mt. Ada residence of the Wrigley family, the Chicago chewing gum magnates who still own most of Santa Catalina Island, is accompanied by a quartet of other fine views of the lobby and auditorium with a hallmark being whimsical ocean-inspired designs and also filled with Art Deco touches, and the second floor circular ballroom.
With respect to the Immanuel Presbyterian Church, designed by Charles F. Skilling and Henry M. Patterson, there is an exterior the angle of which seems to make the impressive spire even taller and more imposing. Interior views of the massive auditorium with its very high vaulted ceilings, enormous light fixtures, choir loft with stained glass window at the back, altar and pulpit, among other details, show how dramatically this edifice was compared to the one featured in yesterday’s post.
There is a great deal more to peruse in the pages of this issue of The Architectural Digest, so we will return soon with a second part of this post. Check back for that!