1123 East Adams Boulevard
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- Built in 1905 on Lot 89 of Grider & Dow's Subdivision of the Briswalter Tract by Frances S. Borst, wife of millwright James Borst
- On September 27, 1905, the Superintendent of Buildings issued Frances Borst a permit for a 28-by-50-foot, six-room, one-story house on Lot 89. The Contractor was James A. Kemp, who lived nearby at 803 East 28th Street
- James and Frances Borst and their unmarried daughter Minnie lived next door to 1123 at 1119 East Adams, which they built in 1901, a house sold and relocated to East 49th Street in 1912 (and demolished in 2014); 1119 was replaced with the Sojourner Truth Industrial Home, opened in 1913. The Borsts appear to have built 1123 for rental income. They may have retained both 1123 and 1119 as such for a few years after moving to Highland Park in 1909. Minnie Borst, it should be noted, was graduated from Pomona College in 1894 and became a bookkeeper trusted by oil field developers, competent enough to be named as an officer of a number of drilling corporations
- 1123 East Adams was rented first to a James E. Willard and then, from 1908 to 1911, to bicycle repairman proprietor Clayton Ward, whose shop was nearby on Central Avenue. The house had a new owner by the fall of 1911
- Grocer Oliver E. Megie bought 1123 East Adams in 1911; on October 17 of that year Megie was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to add a 24-by-30-foot "garage and wagon shed" to the rear of the property
- Oliver Megie segued back into a former occupation, the express and drayage business, soon after moving into 1123 East Adams. He and his wife Cora had four daughters; their youngest, Elsie, made a splash as a budding champion swimmer in 1916 when that summer she swam 286 lengths—five miles—at the Bimini Baths. Two summers later, on June 5, 1918, Elsie married six-foot-tall, 20-year-old swain Clifford Martindale, the manager of the Ocean Park dance pavilion. On October 23, 1922, she was killed in an automobile accident near San Diego; her husband and her oldest sister Anna survived the crash. Oliver and Cora Megie had moved on from 1123 East Adams by 1920 and were now living in Watts
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| A star at 16, married at 18, and dead at 23, Elsie Megie Martindale was pictured in the Los Angeles Herald on August 11, 1916. In the Los Angeles Sentinel of December 20, 1951, Jesse and Clara Hood, by that time owners of 1123 East Adams for 30 years, were pictured at the Sojourner Truth Home, next door to their residence, on the occasion of their Golden Anniversary. |
- Jesse and Clara Hood arrived in Los Angeles from Houston in 1921 and, purchasing 1123 East Adams, settled in for a long stay. Mr. Hood was a carpenter; his wife became a noted cateress
- On October 13, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued Jesse Hood a permit to erect a new four-room dwelling at the middle left of the rear yard of 1123 East Adams; this became 1123½
- The Hoods became active supporters of the Second Baptist Church, which hired Paul Williams to design its current structure at Griffith Avenue and East 24th Street and which Jesse had a literal hand in building (it was dedicated on January 3, 1926, by Dr. Adam Clayton Powell of New York's Abyssinian Baptist Church). The Hoods were also active in the Sojourner Truth Home next door to 1123; it may have been its proximity that attracted them to the house originally (as might have been the quality of 1123 itself, built as it was by millwright James Borst). It was at the Sojourner Truth Home on December 16, 1951, that a lavish reception was held to honor the Hoods for their 50th anniversary, the actual date of which was the 19th. The Los Angeles Sentinel's coverage of the event described the couple as "prominent civic and religious workers of the city." Jesse and Clara were still living at 1123 East Adams when he died after a long illness at County General on September 24, 1955. Clara remained in the house until her death on July 13, 1964
- While several names are associated in records with 1123 East Adams following the death of Clara Hood—chief among them Essie Bell Burrell—ownership of the house is unclear until Trinidad and Guadalupe Lopez acquired it by 1987. They were issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on September 1 of that year to install security bars on both 1123 and 1123½
- On April 27, 2007, the Department of Building and Safety issued Rufino Gomez and Petra Lucas permits to replace the roofs of 1123 and 1123½. Gomez and Lucas were still in possession of the property in 2019
