626 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 7 in Block 1 of Daman & Millard's Subdivision of the Shaw Tract by John H. Stephens, a bookkeeper at the Llewellyn Iron Works
  • John Stephens and his wife Mary McCullough Stephens remained at 626 East Adams until the completion of their next home at 1801 South Oxford Avenue in the Harvard Heights Tract in the fall of 1905 (that house was demolished in 1970)
  • Succeeding 626 West Adams from the Neels was California-born Los Angeles Railway electrician John Henry Neel and his wife Eleanor, who would remain until their deaths. Living with them were her father and mother, Isaac and Sarah Lane, natives of Canada, as was their daughter 
  • On June 19, 1907, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to J. H. Neel for the addition of a barn to the property. On July 30 of that year the Los Angeles Herald reported that the Neels had been burglarized 
  • Among the mentions of the Neels in social columns during their time at 626 East Adams was one in the Los Angeles Evening Herald on August 14, 1916, regarding the marriage at 626 of their niece Florence Blake to Richard Sutton Kier Jr. five days before. Among the decorations described was "An immense horseshoe, which has been in the family for more than twenty years and which bears a history in the family annals, was suspended directly over the head of the bride"
  • Isaac Lane died at 626 East Adams on January 23, 1921. Though his obituary described the devotion of his wife, Sarah Lane had for some reason been living at 623 East Adams across the street—where she was enumerated in the 1920 Federal census—in a house being rented by her divorced daughter Theresa Roberts. Mrs. Lane would die in Los Angeles on October 13, 1926
  • A permit issued by the Department of Buildings to J. H. Neel on April 26, 1922, describes the property at 626 East Adams as containing a single-family dwelling, a garage, and a workshop/woodshed. The document authorized the apparent conversion of the workshop/woodshed into a second garage. (No significant outbuildings appear to stand on the lot today)
  • On August 28, 1923, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to Mrs. Neel to make alteration to 626 to convert the house into a duplex. The second address became 628 East Adams
  • On June 8, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit to J. H. Neel to extend the back of the house four feet and to add to the back porch
  • Eleanor J. Neel died in Los Angeles on February 17, 1933, age 60. Still living at 626 East Adams, John Neel died on August 16, 1938, at the age of 70
  • Ownership of 626 East Adams after that of the Neels is unclear over the next several decades; renting the house by 1940 were Philippines-born Felix Ghofulpo del Prado, a restaurant cook, and his Mexican-born wife Josephine, who had been renting 630 East Adams during the '30s. From at least 1956 and into the 1960s, a Mrs. Soledad Torres is listed on voting rolls as living at 626, in some years with a Miss Concha Torres. Listed in city directories at 626 from 1956 until at least 1973 was a Chole Torres who, according to a Safeway advertisement in the Times on December 10, 1962, had just won a free ham. José and Sara Davalos were owners during the 1990s and into the 2000s, upgrading the house along the way with a new roof and 20 new windows



Illustration: Private Collection