by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The rapid rise to real estate prominence of Charles F. DeWitt and John H. Blair, beginning with a development near Wilshire Boulevard west of downtown Los Angeles and continuing with a trifecta of tract projects to the south near the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company plant in the Florence-Graham neighborhood, reflected the boom that exploded in greater Los Angeles during the early 1920s and peaked in 1923, the year that Homestead owner Walter P. Temple founded the Town of Temple (Temple City) while engaged in other projects in the San Gabriel Valley and the Angel City’s central business section.
The DeWitt-Blair Realty Company followed its Moneta-Main-Florence Avenue Square subdivision with Goodyear Park, both selling out quickly with the latter broadcast as the largest such project in the city, and then turned to Greater Goodyear Park, just south of the tire plant. The first unit of 930 lots, shown in the map highlighted here as the featured object from the Homestead’s collection, were gone in under a month, a remarkable record by any measure, so unit two was quickly placed on the market.
As June 1923 dawned, promotion of Greater Goodyear Park included the idea that speculators on lots could cash in with very high profits as the Los Angeles Express of the 2nd noted that M.W. France wrote to the DeWitt-Blair firm to inform them that “it might interest you to know that I purchased lots 181 and 180 in your Goodyear tract for $1174 each, making a down payment of $420. In five months I sold these lots for $2000 each or a profit of $1750.” Moreover, he’d heard that the value doubled since that time “which is very good proof of the possibilities of lots in your Goodyear tracts.”
An advertisement the following day from the Los Angeles Record reproduced the missive, on the letterhead of France’s advertising firm, and exhorted readers that “in this new unit there are business lots such as Mr. France bought. They will make profits just as big for someone. Will that someone by you?” It was added that 450 houses were constructed in six months at both Goodyear tracts and sales at Greater Goodyear Park registered at $1,575,000, or a pair of lots each hour every business day, since its opening on 25 March.
On the 3rd, another visually striking ad was published under the heading of “WEALTH, POPULATION and INDUSTRIES are pouring into Los Angeles!” and showing a massive funnel poised over the subdivision with an image of the entire United States, with the eastern seaboard at the wider opening and a quintet of rail lines charging west to Los Angeles and people pouring out where “At the Small End of the Funnel is GREATER GOODYEAR PARK.”
This was “Because America’s Largest Industrial District Is Forming Just Across Florence Avenue and Industry Is the Cause of Los Angeles[‘] Rapid Growth.” It was added that four major thoroughfares bounding or within the tract, these being Central, Florence, Nadeau (also 79th Street) and Manchester, had lots and France was again highlighted, this time with his phone number, so he could be asked about his quick speculative profit.
In addition to aforementioned benefits to buying in the subdivision, it was mentioned that it was just four miles from downtown and that Florence and Manchester were “to be extended to the West Coast Beaches.” In fact, Florence later terminated at Manchester, becoming Aviation Boulevard running along the east end of Los Angeles International Airport, while Manchester ends at the Playa del Rey tract, adjacent to the airport at the northwest.
Lastly, DeWitt-Blair wanted potential buyers to know that:
This firm believes in quick subdivision sales at small profits, leaving lot buyers an opportunity to profit too.
Another example of fast profiteering was featured in an ad appearing on the 6th, with the reproduction of a missive from a local, living on East 61st Street, offering “just a line from a ‘Boob’, at least that is what a dozen friends of mine told me when I purchased lot number 60, Tract 5449 from you for $1250. But in less than six months I resold the same lot at 80% profit.” The correspondent closed with “mighty nice to be a ‘Boob’, don’t you think?”
Calling Greater Goodyear Park “the Fastest-Selling, Fastest-Developing Subdivision in the City’s History,” the firm broadcast that, in the prior two months, sales surpassed $1.8 million, totaling an impressive 1,100 lots, averaging nearly 20 a day. In emphasizing the speculative successes it cited, the company utilized a common expression of the day in remarking to potential buyers that it was “-Nuff Sed” when it came to what was possible at the tract.
Yet another striking image, though one used frequently and also dovetailing with an annual beauty pageant at the time, was introduced in a new ad with a heading of “THEY ARE LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR GREATER LOS ANGELES” as well as a downtown skyline that was anything but accurate in its representation of a phenomenally clustered and terraced set of commercial buildings.
The display shows a kneeling Miss Los Angeles was stacking bricks inscribed with the names of businesses locating at William H. Daum’s adjacent Southwest Industrial Gateway Terminal, with it remarked that 57 sits were sold and total expenditures amounting to $25 million. These included the Continental Furniture Company, the Sylvester E. Weaver Roofing Company, Ganahl Lumber (which still operates), the Angelus Furniture Company and the Graham Machine Company.
The record-shattering performance of the pair of Goodyear subdivisions was statistically substantiated with details like $4.7 million in sales in the prior nine months, 500 structures completed, 21 miles of streets placed, 42 miles of curbing and sidewalks installed, 21 miles of gas and water pipes laid and an estimated population of 1,500. It was also asserted that, given the publicized profits, “we are selling Greater Goodyear Park at prices no higher than asked in Goodyear Park.” It was also remarked that “Demand for Lots from busy men forces us to stay open . . . ’til 9:30 P.M.”
One of the more remarkable publicity pieces for the tract appeared in mid-June, with it proclaiming,
The Mountain wouldn’t come to Mahomet [Muhammad, Islam’s founding prophet] so Mahomet went to the Mountain— The Harbor can not come to Los Angeles so, LOS ANGELES MUST GO TO THE HARBOR.
With an image of an Arab-type figure turning and gazing through an open archway to a mountain with the rising sun behind it and a caravan of camels perambulating through a desert, the region from Los Angeles (similarly depicted to the above) to the port was depicted, but with a muscular male figure denoted as “PROGRESS” crouched over the metropolis.
The ad observed that “The Story of Mahomet is being repeated right before your eyes” and added that “Los Angeles is as sure to go to the Harbor as Mahomet was to go to the Mountain,” because the port was “the city’s most important asset, the thing responsible for its amazing growth.” For that to continue, it was asserted, the metropolis had to develop southward to that region and “Greater Goodyear Park Lies Squarely in the Path of This Growth.”
Consequently, announced DeWitt-Blair, the “Unit 3 Pre-Opening Sale Starts Today,” providing buyers great opportunity because “as the city reaches southward to the Harbor . . . it will transform the land it uses into gold.” Moreover, “with millions from all over the Nation pressing against this narrow territory . . . values will mount upward and upward,” so prospective property owners were exhorted “NOW IS THE TIME TO BUY AHEAD OF THIS DEVELOPMENT. TODAY IS THE DAY TO ACT.”
Returning to profitability on lot speculation, the firm assured that “already the magic effect of this movement of the city toward its Harbor is manifest” and, in addition, to the France example, two others were cited. H.H. Phillips, another nearby resident (his letter was also reproduced in a separate ad), put down $210 on his lot purchase and took a profit of nearly that a half-year later, while an Ocean Park (Santa Monica) man, C.H. Frailey, turned down an offer that would net him $2100, after six months, on an investment of $2600. It was added that “there are scores of others,” while totals sales of the two Goodyear projects since 1 October 1922 approached $5 million.
The Los Angeles Record of 16 June noted that “homes for sale on down payments as low as $600 cash and $40 per month are being offered at Greater Goodyear Park” while it was observed that “these homes are four- and five-room bungalows, modern and complete in detail, including all tried built-in features and conveniences.” Not only this, but “each home is built according to its own separate elevation and no two are alike.”
Yet another illustration of money-making on speculation was touted in an ad that reproduced a missive on the letterhead of City Engineer John A. Griffin (this would almost certainly not be permitted today!), who wrote of making a Greater Goodyear Park purchase on 11 May and investing $887.50, but then selling it about a month later and realizing a $717.50 profit. He concluded, “I have always felt that I knew good realty values when I saw them, and this more or less substantiates my belief.”
This led DeWitt-Blair to pronounce:
Here Is a Man Who Knows
What higher recommendation does a subdivision need than to have such a man as City Engineer Griffin purchase a lot in it? It is his business to know Los Angeles better than any man in the city—to know how rapidly it is growing and in what direction most of that growth is occurring.
And armed with that knowledge he bought in GREATER GOODYEAR PARK.
How wise he was is shown by the fact that he made almost 100% profit in 40 days be re-selling it.
If You Won’t Accept Our Judgment You Will Surely Accept His
The Express of the 23rd ran a feature on houses at Greater Goodyear Park, observing that DeWitt-Blair was “co-operating with various builders” and that “in construction, wishes of buyers will be complied with to as large an extent as possible, and purchasers will be permitted to choose wall decorations, lighting fixtures, etc.”
In noting that the lot sizes averaged 40 feet in width and 127 in depth, the firm was said to have conduced a “canvass” which determined that a little over 5,000 square feet was “even more ground than the average man [what about the typical woman?] wishes to care for.” It was claimed that “the soil . . . is ideal for gardening, being rich loam and is singularly free from ‘devil grass,’ the pest of so many newly opened homesites in Southern California.”
The paper commented on the refusal by J.A. Faris, who bought the prime southwest corner of Central and Florence avenues (today a Mexican seafood restaurant occupies the site) for $20,000, with a quarter down, to take a $5,000 profit just four days later and remarked that he had a trio of recent offers for a $10,000 clearing.
DeWitt attributed the phenomenal growth in value in part to the extensions of Central and South Park (now Avalon Blvd.) avenues toward the port along with a recent approval for a streetcar line down the latter as well as along Central, while he cited 62 industrial sites sold at Daum’s tract, the plans for the Fremont high school, and the existence of four major thoroughfares (Manchester and Florence in addition to the others mentioned) within the tract bounds.
The next day’s Times included an advertisement that highlighted “Perfect Homes” at Greater Goodyear Park with images of a pair of bungalows priced from just under $4,000 and up and “built either of stucco or wood” and with cement driveways, garages, sidewalks and electricity, gas and water. Inside features included hardwood floors and Pullman breakfast nooks in kitchen areas and modeled after compact spaces in Pullman railroad cars.
By the end of July, ads were returning to the tie of the tract to its central location between downtown and the port with the heading of “WORLD COMMERCE is pulling the CITY to the HARBOR” represented in the black smoke belched forth by a quartet of large ships arriving at the harbor and showing Central and South Park (Avalon) avenues going right up to landings and represented as tie ropes for the craft. An updates sales figure was that well north of $2.2 million in lots were disposed of since the late March opening and, given this impressive record, it was inquired, “is it any wonder that resales from 20% to 40% profits are being made here?”
Conditions were so good, in fact, that little was advertised or discussed in the press about Greater Goodyear Park after the midyear point. The 7 July number of the Express reported that concrete paving of the west side of Central Avenue from Slauson to Florence avenues was underway and was being paid for by Daum, while a petition was generated by a developer of a hotel and store opposite the tire plant to do the same for the east side and others looked to extend the work to Manchester and then to Main Street (now Compton Blvd.) in Compton. DeWitt hailed these efforts, along with the report that the Daum industrial tract had 73 site purchases, as boosting sales.
A 2 August 1924 article in the paper, featuring a photo of Blair, promoted a new financing plan by the firm in which it would “issue a grant deed to any contract holder with a satisfactory equity in any unimproved lot in Goodyear Park or Greater Goodyear Park, taking back a trust deed for the balance due, thereby enabling the prospective home builder to negotiate a building loan by first mortgage and start construction of his house.”
It was added that home ownership and employment in the construction industry animated this concept, which was to last for two months and to include provisions for escrow accounts for trust deeds and monthly payments starting 90 days after the start of building. A letter to chambers of commerce, realty groups and others stated that DeWitt-Blair “invites other progressive, public-spirited subdividers to join in this movement and urges lumber and material dealers and architects to offer corresponding concessions” to stimulate the building activity “which has heretofore made a world-renowned record for our city.” To show that this idea was not for self-seeking purposes, it was concluded that “the company now owns only eight unsold lots in the entire Goodyear Park area.”
As the project wound down, with just a few remaining lots for sale and 100 Daum tract sites acquired and a half-dozen industrial buildings undergoing construction, there was one last promotion on 26 August entailing the giving away of a $5,000 Spanish-style house with actor Fritzi Fern officiating. Blair told the Express of the prior day:
There will be no band concerts, no speeches, nothing but a snappy fulfillment of our promise. We are giving this home away as an incentive to interest persons in that district lying directly south of the business area—the most rapidly growing residential section of the city.
Because of this incentive, hundreds have gone out there for the first time and witnessed its amazing growth. When in any way it is possible for a firm to encourage Los Angelenos to study their city, I consider it almost a duty to do so.
An ad from the day of the sale found DeWitt-Blair informing readers, “we have kept the faith,” adding “we told you prices in Greater Goodyear Park were too low” and the result was robust resales for profit. It cited its promises with schools, streetcars, streets and Daum’s industrial subdivision and continued,
We have given you the truth. You have believed and purchased. Your lots have increased greatly in value because what we said would happen has happened.
The duo soon launched another development, this one adjacent on the east to Universal City and Studios and dubbed Hollywood Manor. This tract on the west side of Pass Avenue, now Barham Boulevard, was built among the slopes of the Hollywood Hills portion of the Santa Monica Mountains and there are Blair and DeWitt drives in the subdivision.
In an April 1924 ad for the project, DeWitt-Blair proudly observed that in just a few years it proved that “History Repeats Itself” with wildly successful predecessors including their “crowning achievement,” the Goodyear tracts “where in ONE YEAR a great cauliflower garden was transformed into a mighty subdivision of nearly 4000 lots whereon stand today between 700 and 800 homes, new school, hotels, stores, bungalow courts, and where hundreds of profitable resales are negotiated every month.”
Blair largely retired from real estate after this, but returned in 1928 to form a syndicate trust and a realty business, aside from his role as vice-president of DeWitt-Blair and ownership of his own mortgage and realty firm, to develop 236 acres in the Sherman Oaks area amid the Santa Monica range as the Hollywood Foothills Tract. His partner as John M. Lyle, whose other development work included Dana Point in Orange County, Walnut Park (near the Goodyear tracts), West Adams Place (south of the boulevard of that name and near Crenshaw Boulevard and Arlington Avenue) and Hollywood Country Club, adjacent to the new subdivision and which closed in the Depression years.
DeWitt was also an officer of the State Credit Corporation and a Pasadena bank, as well as San Fernando Valley Incorporated, established to advertise real estate projects in that area. He, too, owned a mortgage and realty company and developed Century Square in Lynwood and Valley View Heights in the Sylmar area. He was also part of the Santa Monica Harbor Company, which aimed, but did not realize, to build a “pleasure harbor” in that section, and had interests at Chatsworth, including as an officer at Oakwood Memorial Park and Cemetery.
DeWitt-Blair, which included Charles H. Rachal as a key figure, continued work on such projects as Green Valley Lake, located between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake, but it appears the partnership ended around 1933 as the Great Depression worsened. DeWitt maintained his mortgage and real estate firm until not long before his death in 1946 and Blair, who owned 400 acres in the Beverly Glen section and 200 at Nichols Canyon, also kept his company going until his death in 1953 from a car accident near Gallup, New Mexico.
Notably, the duo, in their mid-1920s heyday, built substantial houses in the Hollywood Hills area, with DeWitt’s property, called Park Hill Estate and still with us, with the Spanish Colonial Revival residence designed by Charles H. Kyson (formerly Kysor, he was the son of Los Angeles’ first professional architect, Ezra, said to have designed the remodel of the Workman House at the Homestead.) This was sold and DeWitt spent his last years in a smaller dwelling at the base of Griffith Park in Los Feliz.
As for Blair, his Spanish Colonial, also extant, mansion, known simply as “The Blair Estate” was designed by George H. Freuhling and was featured in Architectural Digest in 1926. Like his former partner, Blair sold the impressive pile, recently owned by the creator of the cable series, Mad Men, and before that by television personality Leeza Gibbons, but moved just a short distance into Nichols Canyon to a more modest house and remained there until his death. For an interesting look at both homes in one place, check out this page from Paradise Leased.
These tony estates are obviously a world away from Florence-Graham, which is over 90% Latino and working-class, with close to two-thirds of all dwellings rented, and at least 20% of persons in poverty in a section with a median household income of some $65,000 and per capita income of just under $20,000.
A century ago, however, Greater Goodyear Park, like most areas of the city, had strict race restrictions and its denizens were white working-class people, many of whom, presumably, worked at the Goodyear tire plant, the site of which is now a United States Postal Service processing center or the Daum industrial tract, which still exists. This map is a rare reference to the origins of that community as well to the remarkable growth of south Los Angeles during the boom of the early Roaring Twenties.