808 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1900 on Lot 25 of Grider & Dow's Adams Street Tract by real estate investors William Loch Williams and his wife Eloise
  • William Loch Williams had been associated with the American Engraving Company before organizing a new concern, the Commercial Engraving Company, in the fall of 1901, with his wife sitting on the board of directors. The couple had been building rental properties as a side occupation, a number of them along East Adams Street, as the Boulevard was then designated. The Williamses moved from project to project and had recently completed 737 East Adams, residing there at the time of the construction of 808, into which they relocated, renting 737 East Adams to oil operator Lyman J. Barber before selling it to him in January 1901. After a time at 808, the Williamses built and moved into 1007 East Adams, followed by 1018 in September 1903, staying there until April 1904. Having begun a peripatetic move west with the city, William and Eloise Williams were by 1906 living in Hollywood—which would be annexed to Los Angeles four years later—continuing to build and purchase Hollywood and Westside properties into the 1940s
  • During their stay at 808 East Adams, Mrs. Williams's 35-year-old sister, Laura Speck, was married to 26-year-old Harold Spear in the parlor on the evening of April 17, 1901
  • Per the Los Angeles Herald of August 17, 1901, the Williamses sold 808 East Adams the day before to Samuel G. Bailie, manager of the Southern California branch of the Hercules Gas Engine Works, and his wife Mary. According to a classified advertisement in the Herald of July 27, 1902, the Bailies had 808 on the market at that time through broker Fielding J. Stilson. The offering appears to have been postponed due to Mrs. Bailie's pregnancy: The couple's son Everett was born at 808 East Adams on January 21, 1903. Putting 808 back on the market later that year, the Bailies were successful in selling 808 to grocer Alfred Zimbelman, the transaction being reported in the Herald on August 9
  • Alfred Zimbelman had recently arrived in Los Angeles from Des Moines. Described in news reports as having a store in the University District, he had also just taken over the prosperous grocery business of Rasmus Lund at 110 East Fifth Street when he bought 808 East Adams; on November 21, 1903, he was arrested by health inspector Robert Drummond for violating California's pure food law. It seems that the health department was conducting something of a sting against the purveyors (as well as the manufacturers) of KC Baking powder, whose inclusion of alum in its product was deemed in violation of state law. Zimbelman was charged "with keeping and offering for sale as unadulterated a baking powder that as a matter of fact was adultered; a judge had the charge dropped, deciding that alum, despite its purported deleterious health effects, was not an adulteration. (Interestingly, whatever its ingredients, KC Baking Powder is still being sold in 2020)
  • On March 9, 1913, the Department of Buildings issued Alfred Zimbelman a permit to add a Model T–size garage to the rear of the property
  • The Zimbelmans—Alfred, his wife Lula, and their daughters Opal and Edna—settled into 808 East Adams for a 19-year-stay. On the evening of October 10, 1906, Edna married newspaper pressman Claude Fletcher at home. Alfred had by this time opened a store at South Park Avenue (today Avalon Boulevard) near 38th Street. In Riverside on June 1, 1916, at the age of 38, Opal married 26-year-old George A. Fife, an employee of American Type Founders—perhaps they were introduced by her brother-in-law Claude. Alfred and Lula left 808 East Adams in 1922, selling the house to artist Edward B. Hobson and his wife Emma
  • Edward Butler Hobson had been a farmer in San José Township, a defunct district near Pomona, before moving to the big city in 1905. As an artist, his medium was oils; although active in local art leagues and listed in the 1986 book Artists in California, 1786-1940 by Edan Milton Hughes, little visual evidence of his work has turned up. Hobson was still living at 808 East Adams when he died on July 10, 1935, after which Emma remained until the next year when she sold the house to wholesale produce dealer Gin Ghung and his wife Soon Shee
  • On November 5, 1936, the Department of Building and Safety issued "Jung Gin" a permit for a new garage, one measuring 22 by a lot-wide 50 feet. The document was handled and signed for Gin Chung by a third party, hence the mangling of his name
  • Gin Chung appears to have also rejiggered his own name, Anglicizing it to "Jim" or "Jimmy." The Chung family appears to have retained 808 East Adams into at least the late 1970s
  • By the early 1980s, Juan Alfonso Posada had acquired 808 East Adams, his family still in possession of it as recently as 2016
  • A Department of Building and Safety permit issued to Juan Posada on March 22, 1994, authorized repairs to the garage after a fire. Another issued to him on November 1, 2004, legalized the use of the garage from just that to a "S.F.D."—single family dwelling—w/ attached garage with addition"; this was designated 806 East Adams. A permit of August 16, 2016, allowed for the installation of a solar water heater and panel. While no permit is available, the façade of the house was altered in an unfortunate manner sometime after April 2018 when its easterly 118-year-old three-part front window was removed and replaced with single modern window and a second entrance 


Illustration: Private Collection