by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Finishing this post and our deep dive into the pages of the fall 1929 quarterly issue of The Architectural Digest, published by John C. Brasfield, we turn next to a rare retail entry, but which was associated with one of the great iconic structures of Roaring Twenties Los Angeles: the Ambassador Hotel. Here, a pair of photos of the hotel’s drug store are most impressive, not for the ample displays of wares in glass cases and wood shelving, but because of the wild geometric patterned carpets.
A small section devoted to educational institutions included a page of schools in South Pasadena, comprising its junior high by the architectural firm of Marsh, Smith and Powell and including a handsome campanile tower and entrance with a front patio, as well as Pasadena’s Oneonta Grammar School, designed by Hudson and Munsell with an artistic shot through a wide arch looking onto a courtyard and toward a richly ornamented carved plaster entry as well as a portico with walls looking like adobe.
Out at the Claremont Colleges, the recently opened Scripps College, endowed by a rare example of a powerful woman in the hard-boiled world of newspapers and journalism, Ellen Browning Scripps, was represented with a sprawling structure designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann with Spanish Colonial and Moorish architectural styles.
A panoramic view of the structure shows several wings of the edifice, while two other exteriors feature a patio with flagstone walks, not unlike the Temple family’s La Casa Nueva, along with planters and a Moorish star reflecting pool, as well as porticos with Greek Revival columns and wrought-iron chandeliers. The open beam ceiling and simple tables and chairs of the dining room and the more luxurious appointments in upholstered furniture and a piano in the reception room are also of note.
The father-and-son team of John and Donald Parkinson, featured in a few examples in previous parts of this post, designed the substantial Wilshire Medical Building on the southeast corner of the famed thoroughfare and Westlake Avenue a block east of what is now MacArthur Park. The 13-story height-limit edifice features the caduceus symbolizing medical endeavor over the main entrance.
On the following page is the duo’s architectural rendering of the under-construction Federal Reserve Bank Building for the branch of the San Francisco institution on Olympic, then 10th Street, at the northwest corner with Olive. Built in the Classic Moderne subcategory of Art Deco, the structure contains seven stories as well as a double basement section with a massive steel frame faced in brick and granite as well as bas-relief sculptural work of interest. In the late 1980s, the Fed moved its branch around the corner to the west of Grand Avenue and the 1929 edifice comprises lofts and office space today.
Restaurants are not often seen in the pages of the Digest, but featured here is the design of Charles F. Plummer for Schaber’s Cafeteria on the east side of Broadway just south of 6th and next to the old Palace Theatre, with the Los Angeles Theatre across the street and slightly to the north. Unfortunately, the three massive arches which were open on the second floor for a sort of al fresco dining and the cool marquee are long gone, though much of the excellent terra cotta detailing and the Moorish screens remain.
Impressive as the exterior image is, the interiors are even more spectacular. The mezzanine dining room photo includes the view out of those open arches, but the ceiling detail is also remarkable. The shot of the stair to the mezzanine is also something to behold including the arched mural on the landing, while a detail of the staircase shows off the tile, iron railings and other decorative elements. Lastly, be sure to check out this post from our blog about the enterprise.
A landmark commercial structure from nearly two decades before is the Isaac N. Van Nuys Building at the southwest corner of Spring and 7th streets, designed by the prominent firm of Morgan, Walls and Clements. An addition of a few stories next to the structure on the south is somewhat modest in comparison, though the spaces were advertised early in 1929 for brokers and investment houses with the added benefit of an attached garage. The large Greek Revival columns and projecting cornice are carried through, thought the entrance includes sculpted eagles standing watch, while bronze screens are also impressive.
A dozen photographs of the Santa Barbara County Courthouse shown an opulence for a public building almost without compare for the period and this coming after a 1925 earthquake did substantial damage to the coastal mission town. The substantial entrance, solid clock tower, a round tower with a circular stairway, a view from the garden, an arched pass-through, the jail tower and sheriff’s department office are all excellent images, but the interiors are stunning with a remarkable profusion of tile, coffered and beamed ceilings and staggering murals in the supervisors’ meeting and assembly room.
Significant efforts were made, during the great boom of the Roaring Twenties, for public buildings to keep up the many needs of the Angel City’s residents, whether it was the Public Central Library, City Hall, Coliseum or, as highlighted here, the sprawling General Hospital, recently Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center and, as of May 2023, Los Angeles General Medical Center.
Work began in 1927 with the Art Deco design by Allied Architects Association of Los Angeles, a consortium formed in 1921 which worked on the Hollywood Bowl, the Hall of Justice, the Bob Hope Patriotic Hall and others. Founding members included Octavius Morgan, David Allison, Elmer Grey, Reginald D. Johnson, George E. Bergstrom, Myron Hunt and two Sumners, Hunt and Spaulding. Two photos show the construction of the massive edifice, which wasn’t completed until 1933 during the height of the Great Depression.
Former partners, Aleck Curlett (shown here as “Curlette”) and Claude Beelman, share a page devoted to the former’s Foreman [and Clark] Building, described as a blend of Art Deco and Gothic Revival, with a three-story combined structure housing the namesake department store and two ten-story towers at the southwest corner of Hill and 7th streets and across from the Pantages Theatre, and the latter’s Garfield Building, an Art Deco edifice at the northwest corner of Hill and 8th, which has long been vacant and defaced, but which was acquired in 2023 for a future boutique hotel.
A pair of long-gone Beverly Hills structures are featured in this issue, including the long Spanish Colonial, with hints of Art Deco, home of the KEJK radio station, which shared the edifice with, interestingly enough, a gas station. A detail of the two-story main block, with thin tall rectangular windows and on which was the antenna tower, shows some curious insets, while an door entry to the right also is notable for its staggered inset. Architect Carl Lindbom, denoted as “European Certified” worked on residences at San Clemente, including Casa Romantica, and Hollywoodland (where the famous Hollywood sign is located) during the period.
Befitting the moneyed environs of the city, the municipal swimming pool and two-story administration building with single story wings by Edward Gray Taylor and Ellis Wing Taylor were well above and beyond what most municipalities would build for such facilities, especially the striking pointed arches at the entrance with colorful Claycraft Potteries tiles, as well as wrought-iron sconces, a stair railing, and a window screen. The structure and pool were on La Cienega Boulevard at Gregory Way, north of Olympic Boulevard, but some images of the site and the radio station can be found at Martin Turnbull’s site.
Situated where Temple Street and Silver Lake Boulevard both end at Beverly Boulevard, near Virgil Avenue, just south of the 101 Freeway, the American Storage Building, designed by Arthur E. Harvey, is now a Public Storage facility with the gaudy trademark orange color of that brand. Much of the majestic sculptural work on the exterior survives, though that color detracts, while the filled in windows, though with surviving original grating, on the Beverly frontage have been lost, but one can still see the impressive detail lavished on what has always been a highly functional building—except for some notable exceptions as discussed by friend of the Homestead, Hadley Meares, in her Curbed Los Angeles piece on the structure.
Also featured, though with just two images, is Los Angeles’ monumental City Hall, designed by John C. Austin, Albert C. Martin and John Parkinson, built on the site of the Temple Block and completed in April 1928. An artistic photo with the view framed by trees from Bunker Hill and including a portion of the Los Angeles Times building shows most of the 28-story landmark, the only edifice exempt from height limits. An interior hall highlights stunning murals on the arched ceiling, along with stone-clad columns, impressive chandeliers and other details.
It is pretty rare to find in the pages of The Architectural Digest structures that aren’t in downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, the “West Side” or other generally wealthy or prominent areas, but the Golden Gate Theatre, at the southwest corner of Whittier Boulevard and Atlantic Avenue in East Los Angeles, was a notable exception. The auditorium survives and is a CVS pharmacy, but a collection of retail buildings highlighted by a dramatic corner tower were razed because of damage from the 1987 Whittier earthquake. The views in the magazine are of the strikingly ornate stage and proscenium and stunning ceiling decorations that were as beautiful as any in the theatre district on Broadway in downtown.
On the west side of Los Angeles Street, south of 7th Street, is a structure that has some remarkable Gothic ornamentation on its upper floors, though some bizarre vertical bars, apparently of cast concrete or some similar material mar the second floor. The Digest has two images, of the upper portion, which looks substantially the same now, and then of the lower section, where some truly striking terra cotta bas relief has been replaced by those bars, while a gorgeous arched main entrance has been turned into something completely nondescript. This is the Merchants Exchange Building, designed by W[illiam]. Douglas Lee, also known for the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood and the El Royale Apartments in Hancock Park.
After images of Leland Bryant’s Casa Granada Apartments in Hollywood, with its dramatic stairs from the street, rooftop towers, highly ornamented tall windows and other details, as well as the far more utilitarian Willys-Overland automobile plant, designed by Beelman, there are several photos of the Spanish Colonial California Stucco Products Company facility, including an exterior as well as interior views of the lobby and stairs.
Previously covered in this blog was the groundbreaking for the massive Firestone Tire and Rubber Company plant on 40 acres at the northeast corner of Alameda Street and Firestone Boulevard, extending east to Santa Fe Avenue, in the western fringes of South Gate. The Spanish Colonial executive building at that eastern end, with a corner clock tower and wings branching from there, is also distinguished by a large arched entrance and a remarkable tile detail showing Africans, presumably in Liberia, where a 99-year Firestone contract expires net year, tapping rubber trees, while the plant, designed to make smaller tires than those at the home facility in Akron, Ohio, eventually encompassed more than a million square feet. The executive building still stands, while the area around it is being developed as a South Gate Educational Center for East Los Angeles College.
Also discussed here in a prior post was the Goodrich Tire Plant, known for its subsidiary, the “Pacific Goodrich Rubber Company,” situated in the City of Commerce, on East 9th Street, soon renamed Olympic Boulevard at the southeast corner of the intersection with what was named Goodrich Boulevard. Designed by Carl Jules Weyl, who left architecture during the Depression for a Hollywood art director career, including an Oscar for his work on 1938’s classic, The Adventures of Robin Hood, the edifice also had a corner tower, this one rounded with a Moorish pointed arch entrance, for the administration office, while the plant stretched a considerable distance down Olympic to the west. A panorama of the plant and an interior view of the entrance hall are featured in the magazine.
Of very different architecture and still under construction was the Samson Tire and Rubber Company plant, also in the City of Commerce off Interstate 5 and Telegraph Road, an old route through the area, and designed by Morgan, Walls and Clements and with a centralized executive building and sprawling plant elements going east and west from there. The firm, which had humble origins in Compton, embarked on this ambitious project and the architecture played off the company name with an Assyrian palace as inspiration. A panoramic architectural rendering and a detail of the administration structure are included, but, in the ensuing Depression, Samson was bought out by U.S. Tire and Rubber and then Uniroyal operated the plant until 1962—today, portions have been saved for The Citadel outlet complex.
Two other commercial structures featured in The Digest were the Chapman (Park) Market, on 6th Street between Kenmore and Alexandria avenues in modern Koreatown, a highly ornamented Spanish Colonial complex by Morgan, Walls and Clements, and much of which survives today, and the Platt Music Company Building, on the east side of Broadway north of 9th and next to the Orpheum Theatre and designed by Walker and Eisen (Walter P. Temple’s favored architects earlier in the decade) in the Gothic Revival style.
Finally, a back section of dozens of ads from contractors, rug dealers, interior designers, manufacturers of fixtures, furniture and furnishings, tile and terra cotta makers and much more, including Julius Dietzmann, whose ironcraft works provided much of the material for La Casa Nueva, are also notable as suppliers of much of the fine work done in the buildings featured in the magazine.
We’ll look to showcase other issues of The Architectural Digest, so check back in the future for posts on those.