3846 Wilshire Boulevard
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Charles L. Nichols and Frank H. Stanbery were among the many developers who bought, improved, and sold lots during the rapid westward development of residential Wilshire Boulevard, which reached fever pitch round 1910. Having acquired Lot 17 of the Western Wilshire Heights tract, two lots east of Manhattan Place on the south side of the boulevard, and having hired Frederick J. Soper to design a house for the site, Nichols and Stanbery were issued a permit by the Department of Buildings on September 22, 1911 to begin construction. On June 23, 1912, the Los Angeles Times reported that Mrs. Hilda B. Jenkins had just paid $20,000 for the 10-room house at 3846 Wilshire Boulevard, which was "only recently finished. It has a fine location.... The house is finished in oak and Juana Costa mahogany downstairs and the walls are covered in rich tapestries." Mrs. Jenkins was the wife of John J. Jenkins, president of City Dye Works and Laundry; in November 1916, they sold 3846 to automobile man Perry H. Greer. In later years gone the nonresidential way of all Wilshire Boulevard, the house became the home of the Psychic Science Church. The church moved on, but 3846 survived as late as 1970, when the Department of Building and Safety issued a demolition permit for it on May 4 of that year.
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3852 Wilshire Boulevard in 1938; images taken that year offer glimpses of 3846, which would stand for 32 years more. |
