752 East Adams Boulevard

PLEASE ALSO SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES
FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO ADAMS BOULEVARD, CLICK HERE




  • Built in 1905 on a parcel comprised of Lot 27 and the easterly 10 feet of Lot 28 in Grider & Dow's Adams Street Tract by real estate investor Andrew Snyder. On March 27, 1905, he applied to the Superintendent of Buildings for a permit to build a two-story, eight-room dwelling on the lot 
  • Architect: William K. Sinclair is designated as the architect of 752 East Adams on the original building permit, working with builder Ellery L. Henck of Henck Brothers, real estate and building contractors
  • On August 16, 1896, the Los Angeles Times had reported that Andrew Snyder bought the 60-by-150-foot parcel at the southwest corner of Adams Street the day before
  • Andrew Snyder appears to have been instrumental in developing the original South Park, which is an actual city greensward between 49th and 51st streets and San Pedro Street and Avalon Boulevard. (Today's redevelopment of the southerly downtown business district centering on 11th and Grand streets has usurped the South Park name in recent years)
  • Snyder is listed at 752 East Adams Street in the 1906 Los Angeles city directory, although it appears that he soon moved on to new projects, including 4217 Woodlawn Avenue and 506 East 48th Street, in which he employed Henck Brothers as builders (both of these houses also still stand)
  • By 1907, Andrew Snyder appears to have sold 752 East Adams to picture-framer William H. Murdoch, who was soon to open a real estate office on Central Avenue
  • Coming into possession of 752 East Adams in 1910 was Stephen Kellam Dolphin, head pressman at the Los Angeles Times, and his wife, Clara. Mr. Dolphin's time at 752 was short; apparently already ill when he moved in, he died in the house at the age of 40 on August 28, 1910. In tribute to a man who was clearly a valued employee, the Times ran impressive coverage of his demise and funeral given that he was on the floor and not among the top brass. Curiously, Clara Dolphin had already identified herself as a widow when the Federal census was enumerated on the previous April 19. Soon after her husband's death, she opened Dolphin's Flower Shop at 337 South Spring Street; the venture lasted about a year


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on April 16, 1911: Mrs. Dolphin's
venture lasted until the end of the year, when a new marriage
and rental income from 752 East Adams Street sufficed.


  • It appears that Clara Dolphin married a Mr. Reed—another short-lived proposition—before marrying marine engineer Charles C. Bentley in February 1919 and moving to Wilmington. She retained ownership of 752 East Adams during the 1910s, renting part if not all of it out to at least six parties before 1917
  • On May 6, 1919, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to "Clara M. Dolphin" to reconfigure doors to create more than one main entrance. The document listed a house, a barn, a shed, and a doghouse on the lot
  • After Clara Bentley's departure for Wilmington, the reconfigured 752 East Adams was again rented; in 1924, the house was auctioned off, a large display advertisement announcing its sale, scheduled for February 19, referring to its location as "a splendid business corner" situated "in a rapidly developing industrial district." The fortunes of Adams Street, both east and west, were evolving as the population of Los Angeles began to more double during the 1920s. As it turned out, that pressure on housing was not enough to cause 752 to be replaced, with the San Fernando Valley, among other new suburban areas, managing to absorb the influx


The Roaring Twenties saw the population of Los Angeles rise from 576,673 in 1920
to 1,238,048 ten years later; improved dependability of automobiles along with
better roads and general prosperity opened up vast new development that
would, in effect, preserve the great swath of Victorian, Edwardian, and
Craftsman houses that today define the low-scale neighborhoods
flanking easterly Adams Boulevard north toward downtown
and for many miles south down toward the harbor.


  • By 1927, 752 East Adams had been acquired by Albert Prosper, identified in the 1930 census as the owner and as a shoe-store janitor; aside from his wife, Stella, there are no other individuals enumerated in the house on the document. The Prospers remained for a decade until Mrs. Prosper was committed to Patton State Hospital in the late '30s for unknown reasons; Albert left the house by 1940 to live with his mother on East 21st Street 
  • The ownership of 752 East Adams during the 1940s is unclear; by April 1940, divorcée Julia Franklin, a domestic, and her daughter Louise Young, a dancer in films, were renting the house. In its report of Los Angeles news on October 25, 1941, The Chicago Defender reported that the Franklins had recently hosted a party at 752 that was attended by Duke Ellington and Louise Beavers, apparently friends of Louise
  • By 1947, 752 East Adams had been acquired by James and Sicily Stasher. On August 1, 1947, Mr. Stasher was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add an "accessory utility building." A short biography of James Stasher given in a description of his grave at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier reveals that his mother was an African-American woman, Margaret Allen, his father a member of the Ku Klux Klan reportedly named Ned Barnett—"[a] relative of late governor of Mississippi, Robert Ross Barnett." The Stasher family would own the house until 1965, when it was sold to Thomas L. Murphy
  • On July 16, 1966, Thomas Murphy was issued a permit for repairs following a fire
  • By 1971, 752 East Adams had been acquired by Marquin Jordan as rental property. By this time, there were three dwelling units on the lot, the main house carrying the addresses 752 as well as 750. A rear one-story building was designated 752½; another one-story dwelling at the west center of the lot, 750½, was demolished after Jordan was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on December 13, 1971. Among other permits issued to Jordan was one dated October 19, 1998, for the repair of fire damage. The Jordan family owned the property as late as October 9, 2014, when a permit for a new roof was issued



Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT