“Artists and Craftsmen Who Have . . . Built Mighty Structures of Steel and Stone Monuments of Beauty and Splendor to House Industry and Commerce”: The Architectural Digest, 1929, Part Two

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

Returning to the pages of the fall 1929 issue of The Architectural Digest, which has evolved considerably, as virtually all magazines do, from its origins in 1920 under publisher John C. Brasfield, the greatest number of photographs devoted to one structure are for the opulent Hotel Agua Caliente in Tijuana, Baja California, México, though the location was given in the magazine as “Agua Caliente, Old Mexico,” this being the name of a neighborhood formerly outside city limits.

Because gambling, horse racing and the consumption of alcohol during Prohibition were illegal in the California, the massive resort’s first stage opened, just a few miles from the border, in June 1928, including the hotel, with 500 rooms, a casino, health spa and restaurant, while a second phase completed at the end of 1929 involved a golf course, race track, gardens, guest bungalows, Olympic-size swimming pool and more. The end of Prohibition in 1933 and the economic collapse of the Great Depression doomed Agua Caliente, as was the case with a smaller project in Ensenada, the Playa Ensenada, in which Walter P. Temple was an investor.

Part one of this post mentioned several prominent Art Deco structures in Los Angeles in the magazine, including the Bullock’s Wilshire department store, and its architects, the father-and-son team of John and Donald Parkinson, had another classic of that style featured, this being the Title Insurance Building, home of very important Title Insurance and Trust Company.

The stunning structure, considered in the “Zig Zag Moderne” substyle coined by the late architectural historian David Gebhard and which he applied to such buildings as the one built by Richfield Oil and also included in part one of this post, is shown in a quintet of images including the exterior, main lobby, upper vestibule, trust department and directors’ room. Two additional photos show the loan department and lobby of the Guarantee Building Loan and Association office within the structure and these pages reflect the sumptuous style of the edifice as well as the incredible wealth generated by TICOR during the boom that lasted much of the Roaring Twenties.

The First Trust Building, at the northeast corner of Colorado Boulevard and Madison Avenue in Pasadena, was completed in 1928 with architects Fitch Haskell and Cyril Bennett designing it in a mixture of styles, including the Beaux Arts, Mediterranean Revival and Renaissance Revival. An exterior view from the southwest corner of the intersection shows the southern and most of the western elevations, while the president’s office with full wood paneling on the walls, a fireplace and highly ornamented ceiling and the especially ornate banking room including murals of Crown City scenes are included.

The Los Angeles headquarters of the Bank of America is represented by seven stunning images showing a level of grandiosity and wealth of detail that dwarfs the First Trust Building, but was to be expected by the scale of what was found on Los Angeles’ Wall Street, which is what Spring Street was called at the time. The building was finished in 1924 for the Hellman Commercial Trust and Savings Bank and the magazine made a rare error in stating that the architects were Schultz and Weaver, instead of getting the name of Leonard Schultze correct.

Schultze and his partner, S. Fullerton Weaver, were widely known for their work with the Biltmore Hotel chain, including the still operating hostelry on the west side of Pershing Square, as well as for the nearby Subway Terminal Building, now the Metro 417 loft apartments, at Olive and 4th. In 1928, the Bank of America, established five years earlier and then acquired by San Francisco’s Bank of Italy, took over the structure. In late 1930, the firm took on the Bank of America name and it has grown to massive proportions, generating nearly $100 billion in revenue in 2023 with over $3 trillion in total assets.

Impressive as the edifice is from the outside, including the trio of substantial and highly ornamented entrance doors, the two-story lobby inside the entrance, the cavernous main banking room—which overwhelms with its teller’s windows, furniture, chandeliers, staircase and, particularly, the ceiling decoration—and the fireplace and wall and ceiling décor of the directors’ room, are redolent of the financial power of the bank during the era.

Speaking of opulence, there are a trio of remarkable images of what each is merely labeled as “Detail in a Los Angeles apartment.” Clearly, the owner or renter, much less the building owner, did not want readers to know the location, but the interior decoration is staggering. A hand carved fireplace mantel and wall details, carved wood walls and ceiling cornices along with amazing curtains, draperies and hand-tufted carpets, much less the furniture, are nothing short of dazzling—and, again, embodying the extremes of wealth that marked that period (and to which we’ve returned about a century later.)

Some religious structures were mentioned in part one, specifically the Immanuel Presbyterian Church, also the subject of a post several days ago, and the Digest also featured eight photographs of the incredible Temple B’nai B’rith, generally known as the Wilshire Boulevard Temple. This was the third location of the Orthodox Jewish congregation, which was formed about 65 years previously by Rabbi Joseph Newmark and long led by Rabbi Abraham Wolfe Edelman.

The first location of the temple was on Fort Street (renamed Broadway in 1890) between Second and Third near the city hall, with that 1873 structure designed by Ezra F. Kysor, who is attributed to have worked on the substantial remodeling of the Workman House at the Homestead a few years prior. A second and much larger synagogue, demonstrating the growth of the Angel City’s Jewish population and that of the B’nai B’rith congregation, was opened in 1896 at the northeast corner of Hope and 9th streets.

In 1921, two years after Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin became the senior rabbi for the congregation, land was purchased at the northeast corner of Wilshire and Hobart Boulevard incorporating an entire block for the campus. The temple’s website notes that the edifice was inspired by some of the famous cathedrals of Europe while also utilizing Byzantine and Romanesque styles and the interior is reminiscent of the Pantheon in Rome. Rabbi Edelman’s son, Abram, worked on several notable local structures, including the Breed Street Shul in Boyle Heights and the current Shrine Auditorium, and designed the structure with consulting architects, the brothers James and David Allison.

An exterior view is taken from the southwest corner of the intersection and there are also images of the front and west entrances. Interior shots include an expansive interior courtyard (labeled a patio), one of the eight incredible chandeliers, the richly appointed ark and screen, the elegant chancel and astounding murals above wood paneling in a beautiful contrast. As the temple nears its centennial, it remains a vital force in the Jewish community and a notable architectural jewel in what is now the Koreatown neighborhood.

Edgar J. Cheesewright was frequently mentioned in The Architectural Digest, along with other prominent interior designers, who, however, were never given anywhere near the credit for the beauty of commercial and residential buildings as architects, though, especially with the latter, the sense of home could only be fully realized by the artistry of figures like Cheesewright. Another architectural historian of note, Robert Winter, called the Pasadena designer the finest in his field for residential work.

In 1927, Cheesewright had a substantial complex of more than forty rooms spanning some 35,000 square feet built for his burgeoning studio at the southeast corner of Green Street and Catalina Avenue, just north of the California Institute of Technology, and various sources describe it as Colonial, French Quarter and Georgian in style, with the design done by Louis du Puget Millar and Edward A. Hayes. The nine photos show the exterior from across Green, along with entrance and corner details, while the well-appointed interiors include the entrance hall, a gallery and a quartet of other details.

The property had offices, design spaces, showrooms, furniture-making quarters and more and it was filled with antique furniture and furnishings to give it the look of a fine residence Cheesewright worked on, not to mention a remarkable circular staircase mural. After he closed the business in 1936, Millar ran his business out of the complex, but, in 1946, it became part of a Navy research unit, while there were also unsubstantiated claims that Albert Einstein had an office there, though a son of his apparently worked for the Navy in Pasadena for a very brief interval. More recently, a restaurant operated in some of the main studio areas, but it has now closed.

The Biltmore Hotel was mentioned above, with respect to its architects Schultze and Weaver, and featured in this issue was the addition facing Grand Avenue across from the Central Public Library. Along with the exterior as viewed from the library grounds, interiors show the entrance to the Sala de Oro along with its foyer and a staircase to the space, the North and South Galerias, and a portion looking across the Galeria Real. The details are as rich and ornate as anything in the original section of the hostelry, showing why the Biltmore was the epitome of luxury, with much of that retained today.

Another top-notch hotel featured in the magazine was the Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco, of which there are ten views showing the hostelry in all of its finery, while banks in that city and in San Diego are also featured. The Bank of Hollywood, designed by Aleck Curlett (whose last name is misspelled “Curlette”), is on the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, with the first phase of the structure completed in 1929.

Considered a blend of Art Deco and Gothic styles, the second high-rise in the film colony is shown, with its large lighted rooftop sign for the bank, from an upper floor of the Broadway Hollywood Building at the southwest corner, while an interior of the banking room, includes a remarkable winged clock along the railing of a second floor access. A prior post here featured a 1929 pamphlet about the structure, now known as the Equitable Building, by Gilbert H. Beesemyer, a major financial figure in Tinseltown until his arrest for a stunning level of financial crimes.

The University of California branch at Westwood was a descendant of sorts of the Normal School for teacher education (a graduate of which was Mary Julia Workman, a major Angel City figure for many years) which formerly operated at the Central Public Library site. After a stint at what became Los Angeles City College, the institution morphed into U.C.L.A. Two campus buildings, the Library and Royce Hall are shown as just completed and display the Italian Romanesque style that marked the campus’ architectural program.

The first part of this post began with mention of the mausoleum at the Sunnyside Cemetery in Long Beach and, while we shared a photo of the exterior, there are more including the front elevation, a portion of the south wing, the entrance to the chapel as well as its family entrance, a fountain detail, and a cloister. Interior views show the chancel and catafalque, the interior of the chapel, an entrance to mezzanine with beautiful glass windows, the skylit mezzanine corridor with stunning arches along what look like marble walls, the west entrance, a corridor detail, the impressive “fairy window” at the baby section, the main reception room and more.

Another well-known Hollywood structure, on Ivar Avenue just north of Hollywood Boulevard is the Knickerbocker Apartments, designed by John M. Cooper. The lobby, with its finely detail decoration on the ceiling beams, tile floor, and well-appointed furnishings, and the Lido Court, with what looks like rattan furniture and more beautiful ceiling decoration are highlighted. The structure soon became a hotel, known for its many film colony guests and residents, and is now senior residential building.

Beyond the Immanuel Presbyterian Church, another edifice from that denomination included in the magazine is the Westminster in Pasadena, situated on Lake Avenue near Altadena. The French Gothic Revival edifice has a soaring 150-foot tower and a massive glass window over the entrance, while interiors of the chancel also quite impressive.

The church began in the Crown City in 1906 with the Lake site occupied by 1909, though the growth of the congregation led to the creation of the building designed by the prominent firm of Marston (misspelled as “Marsten”), Van Pelt and Maybury and built by Clarence Day, who worked on the mausoleum at Sunnyside and another at Altadena’s Mountain View Cemetery. The cornerstone was laid in October 1927 and the first service in the new church was conducted in November 1928.

We will return tomorrow with part three of this post, so be sure to check back then!