4656 Wilshire Boulevard

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Appearing above not on Wilshire Boulevard but on the east side of Lucerne Boulevard just below Olympic, to where it was moved in late 1946, the bungalow once at 4656 was the personal project of real estate man William Robins Flood. In residence with his wife Jean by 1925, Flood remained in the house until his death in September 1935; Mrs. Flood moved out soon after, renting 4656 to James J. Orca. Its lot acquired for parking at the end of the war years by Farmers Underwriters, the insurance concern whose headquarters building had gone up next door in 1937, the house was moved by the company soon after the Department of Building and Safety issued a relocation permit on November 14, 1946. It came to rest at 1027 South Lucerne Boulevard, where it stands today.

1940: At left, the lot near the northwest corner of Olympic and Lucerne boulevards
to which 4656 Wilshire Boulevard would be moved six years years later.
Fremont Place lies just beyond the trees in the background.


Illustrations: Google Street View; USCDL





4622 Wilshire Boulevard

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Built at 2881 West Eighth Street in 1909; moved to 4622 Wilshire Boulevard in 1926. Demolished in 1967. No images of 4622 have been found as yet; seen here is its location indicated on a Sanborn insurance map dated 1950. 




Illustration: Sanborn Maps




4628 Wilshire Boulevard

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Built in 1926. Demolished in 1967. No images of 4628 have been found as yet; seen here is its location indicated on a Sanborn insurance map dated 1950. 




Illustration: Sanborn Maps




707 South Tremaine Avenue

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Among the westernmost of Wilshire Boulevard houses was one with a distinctive belvedere built at the height of Southern California's signature Mediterranean craze of the 1920s. Born in Macedonia in 1883, Raphael Alexander arrived in Los Angeles in the 1910s, married a native Angeleno, and went into the cleaning and dyeing business on Central Avenue. He did well enough to buy Lot 162 at the southwest corner of Wilshire and Tremaine in the Wilshire Crest tract and build on it a 10-room house. Choosing for the job William F. Lierman, a builder who went on to participate in the residential development of Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Cheviot Hills, Alexander was issued a construction permit by the Department of Building and Safety on October 27, 1927.


As seen from the northeast corner of McCadden Place, 1931


In the early '30s, Alexander acquired a Kern County ranch, eventually moving there full time; retaining 707 South Tremaine, he applied to the city for a zoning variance in order to add a separate building for professional offices, although it is unclear as to whether this was ever built. Curiously, renowned architect Stiles O. Clements later acquired the property, apparently planning to move his offices to it from the Van Nuys Building on Seventh Street; he was issued a certificate of occupancy by the city for this purpose on February 11, 1952. The move appears not to have been made, with Clements remaining downtown and 707 being acquired by Edward E. Keeler, a real estate operator and president of the Western Advertising Agency; Keeler received a permit from the Department of Building and Safety on October 19, 1953, for the house's conversion into offices for his businesses. Capitalizing on the boulevard's name, the building's address became 4848 Wilshire. While Keeler remained under lease, he traded it in June 1954 to Vongehr-Low, an importer of Asian goods, for a Westwood apartment building. The demise of the house didn't come for another 34 years, with permits issued for its demolition on May 22, 1987; condos rose on the full southside Wilshire blockfront between Tremaine and Longwood the next year.




Illustrations: USCDL




700 South Longwood Avenue

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On October 9, 1924, the Department of Buildings issued inner-tube manufacturer John Rose Reilly a permit to begin construction of the boulevard latecomer once at the southeast corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Longwood Avenue. In the midst of the Southern California craze for Mediterranean architecture, 700 South Longwood was a throwback to the aughts, faux-half-timbered English houses being that decade's rage; Marshall P. Wilkinson was the architect. John Reilly died on October 19, 1931; Josephine Reilly moved out of 700 but retained it into the '60s. On July 21, 1960, she received a permit from the Department of Building and Safety to convert the house into a school. Lasting another 27 years, a permit for its demolition was issued by the city on May 22, 1987, the same day that one was issued for 707 South Tremaine at the eastern end of the block. A blockfront of condominiums rose on the sites of the two houses the next year.

Billed as John R. Reilly, John and Josephine's son, born in 1920, appeared in Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Well-Groomed Bride (1946).



Illustration: USCDL
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