3002 Wilshire Boulevard
PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES
PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES
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While a photographic image of Giles Kellogg—Williams alumnus, attorney, oil-company executive, clubman, and evangelistic Presbyterian—remains elusive, a clear one of his house has been almost as hard to find. The image above, which appeared in the Los Angeles Express on October 28, 1905, will have to suffice to illustrate Hudson & Munsell's design for Kellogg completed that year on Lot 13 of the Sunset Park Tract.
A native of Troy, New York, Kellogg went west in 1879 at the age of 24 for his health, which was apparently unsuited to harsh winters. Starting as an auditor for the Santa Fé railroad, he settled in San Diego. After participating in the development of Coronado Island, he became associated with Union Oil in Los Angeles. As Union's secretary, his place in the world ordained by the tenets of Calvinism, Kellogg lay-preached and served as the head of the city rescue mission as he banked his shekels and invested in real estate. The two-story house he built at 3002 Wilshire for his wife Annabella—also a native of Troy—and their four children would remain his primary residence until he died suddenly at his summer home in Coronado on April 5, 1916. After her husband's death, Mrs. Kellogg began to spend more time near San Diego; she appears to have rented 3002 during 1917 to Chester A. Shephard, a distributor of Stewart trucks and McFarlan automobiles. Mrs. Kellogg's move to her house at 1200 4th Street in Coronado became permanent by 1920; she died there on December 16, 1941. That the residential nature of Wilshire Boulevard was short-lived is demonstrated by the Kelloggs' Los Angeles property, which, apparently retained by the family and rented, was given over to commerce less than 15 years after it was built. The boulevard would become a destination of well-heeled matrons even before Bullock's-Wilshire opened in September 1929; it appears that dealers in art took space in 3002 as early as 1921. By 1923, shops had opened in the many of the houses on both sides of Lafayette Park, as well as tea rooms to feed the flocks of shoppers and gallerygoers. To feed and, as it would turn out, illegally "inspirit" thirsty matrons: The Lady Ann Cavendish Tea Room, in operation at 3002 by the fall of 1923, was busted in March 1926 as a ladies' daytime speakeasy. Rushing in on "Society ladies sipping Oolong," Federal agents seized a sizable still and 4,400 gallons of mash and moonshine. While the fun lasted, Mrs. Albert Beck Wenzell, widow of the painter and noted illustrator, kept the memory of her husband alive in a studio and salon she maintained in rooms at 3002—perhaps capitalizing on the rash purchases of tipsy shoppers—before moving just next door to 2976.
A native of Troy, New York, Kellogg went west in 1879 at the age of 24 for his health, which was apparently unsuited to harsh winters. Starting as an auditor for the Santa Fé railroad, he settled in San Diego. After participating in the development of Coronado Island, he became associated with Union Oil in Los Angeles. As Union's secretary, his place in the world ordained by the tenets of Calvinism, Kellogg lay-preached and served as the head of the city rescue mission as he banked his shekels and invested in real estate. The two-story house he built at 3002 Wilshire for his wife Annabella—also a native of Troy—and their four children would remain his primary residence until he died suddenly at his summer home in Coronado on April 5, 1916. After her husband's death, Mrs. Kellogg began to spend more time near San Diego; she appears to have rented 3002 during 1917 to Chester A. Shephard, a distributor of Stewart trucks and McFarlan automobiles. Mrs. Kellogg's move to her house at 1200 4th Street in Coronado became permanent by 1920; she died there on December 16, 1941. That the residential nature of Wilshire Boulevard was short-lived is demonstrated by the Kelloggs' Los Angeles property, which, apparently retained by the family and rented, was given over to commerce less than 15 years after it was built. The boulevard would become a destination of well-heeled matrons even before Bullock's-Wilshire opened in September 1929; it appears that dealers in art took space in 3002 as early as 1921. By 1923, shops had opened in the many of the houses on both sides of Lafayette Park, as well as tea rooms to feed the flocks of shoppers and gallerygoers. To feed and, as it would turn out, illegally "inspirit" thirsty matrons: The Lady Ann Cavendish Tea Room, in operation at 3002 by the fall of 1923, was busted in March 1926 as a ladies' daytime speakeasy. Rushing in on "Society ladies sipping Oolong," Federal agents seized a sizable still and 4,400 gallons of mash and moonshine. While the fun lasted, Mrs. Albert Beck Wenzell, widow of the painter and noted illustrator, kept the memory of her husband alive in a studio and salon she maintained in rooms at 3002—perhaps capitalizing on the rash purchases of tipsy shoppers—before moving just next door to 2976.
Giles Kellogg's house seems to have gone missing from Wilshire Boulevard with as little notice as its arrival. A photograph taken in 1927 from the two-blocks distant corner of Hoover Street reveals what appears to be the tiniest peak of 3002's roof, parallel to the street; another from a block closer taken as Bullock's-Wilshire and the Town House were nearing completion in the early fall of 1929 reveals an empty lot. A late-August auction had emptied the Kellogg house; on September 9, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit for its demolition. Within a few months, construction began on the building that would take up both the lot on which 3002 had stood as well as the Sunset Park Tract's never-built-on Lot 12 just to its east. The Kellogg Holding Company—presumably Giles's family's venture—had hired architect A. Godfrey Bailey to design the pretty store-and-loft structure that still stands today. The deluxe furniture and decorating firm of Cannell & Chaffin announced in the Times on April 27, 1930, that the building was being readied as its new home, to be addressed 3000 Wilshire Boulevard. Cannell & Chaffin would remain in the building for 57 years.
Illustration: Los Angeles Express
Illustration: Los Angeles Express
