1152 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Completed in 1917 on the southerly 50-foot portions of Lots 16, 17, and 18 in C. W. Brown's Tract as 696 South Westmoreland Avenue, at the northeast corner of West Seventh Street; relocated in 1929 to Lot 145 in Block 2 of Grider & Dow's Subdivision of the Briswalter Tract and addressed 1152 East Adams Boulevard
  • Architect: Harry H. Whiteley
  • The relocated house replaced an earlier dwelling completed in early 1897 for real estate developer Robert A. Scherer, whose extended family occupied it until not long after his death there of typhoid fever in January 1899. The lot, comprised of Lot 145 and the westerly half of 146, was wider than the tract's standard building site. The house changed hands several times before being acquired by pioneer African American building contractor Woodford H. Terry in 1929; he was issued a demolition permit for it on July 31. A new foundation was prepared on the cleared lot
  • The second 1152 East Adams Boulevard was originally built by department-store owner John G. Bullock in partnership with prolific Los Angeles contractor Sanson M. Cooper; a permit for its construction was issued to them by the Department of Buildings on November 20, 1916. As plans evolved for Bullock's new suburban store during the '20s, houses along the east side of Westmoreland Avenue between Wilshire and Seventh Street would need to be moved for Bullock's-Wilshire, which would open on September 26, 1929. The corner lot soon to be vacated by 696 was quickly replaced with an Art Deco Union Oil service station, opened May 1, 1930, which in an arrangement with Bullock's allowed customers to drop their cars off for service while shopping and put the charges on their store account 
  • A permit for the relocation of 696 South Westmoreland Avenue to 1152 East Adams Boulevard was issued to W. H. Terry on October 26, 1929. The Terry family was in residence within a few months and would occupy the house for the next 44 years


Jessie and Woodford Terry are seen with their children Beulah
and 
Frank in the Los Angeles Sentinel of May 13, 1954, at
a recent testimonial dinner honoring Mrs. Terry. It
was held in the dining room of the Golden
State Mutual Life Insurance Building
on West Adams Boulevard.


  • Woodford H. Terry, born in Kentucky, had prospered back in Tennessee as a plumber and furniture maker; moving to California in 1909, he married Jessie Sayers the next year. Settling in Los Angeles, Terry would become a leading businessman, building houses, apartments, and churches in the city and in Pasadena. In August 1927, it was reported that he had contracts worth over $1,000,000. He was a director and the treasurer of the Unity Finance Company, with which architect Paul R. Williams was also associated. Jessie Terry became no less of a leading figure. In 1917 she became an organizer of the first African American branch of the Y.W.C.A. in the city and was the first black woman to serve on the board of the citywide Y.W.C.A. group.  She organized the P.T.A. of Thomas Jefferson High School. In 1939, Mayor Fletcher Bowron appointed her as the first African American and the first woman to the city's Housing Commission. She served on the board of the Urban League and on the boards of organizations supporting the welfare of senior citizens
  • On May 12, 1953, the Department of Building and Safety issued  W. H. Terry a permit to convert 1152 East Adams to a duplex; an exterior staircase was built on the east side of the house to provide access to 1152½
  • The Terrys had two daughters, Juanita and Beulah, and a son, Frank, who who became the U.S. Department of Labor's information officer in Los Angeles and was elected chairman of the city's Federal Executive Board. Woodford Terry died in Los Angeles on December 27, 1960. Jessie Terry was still living at 1152 East Adams when she died on December 11, 1973



Illustrations: Private Collection; Los Angeles Sentinel