208 East Adams Street

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  • Built circa 1880, if not earlier, by William H. K. Montague on what would become Lot 12 in Block A of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract
  • Beginning in 1887, Austin C. Shafer, an established real estate dealer, and Frank D. Lanterman, a civil engineer and surveyor, were given the task of developing the holdings of several South Los Angeles landowners including that of William Henry Kemp Montague at the southeast corner of Adams and Main streets, his property extending east to Maple Avenue and south to 30th Street; though platted, the city south of downtown was still rural. William Montague's father Rodney and stepmother Louisa (née Denison, older sister of his mother) moved west to Los Angeles not long after their marriage in Ohio in October 1852 to begin growing fruit south of the city. He and his brother Newell later joined their father in farming the family's 35 acres and continued the effort after the senior Montague's death in 1886
  • The Los Angeles Herald of December 21, 1890, reported that William H. K. Montague had died at 208 East Adams Street the day before. His widow, Hortense, was noted as a "capitalist" still living at 208 East Adams in the 1900 Federal census; she would remain at 208 until 1904, when she moved into a new house she built at 1939—today addressed 2039—South Oxford Avenue. Mrs. Montague appears to have retained and rented 208 East Adams to various parties during the 1900s. Classified advertisements offered the property for rent, including one in early 1909 describing it suitable for "garden or nursery purposes"
  • Hortense Montague dropped dead while shopping at Coulter's with Lillian Osborne, her middle of three daughters, on August 20, 1910. She was 55
  • Charles H. Young, a locomotive engineer apparently intending to retire, was renting 208 East Adams during the 1910s. On the property he raised, and advertised for sale, Ancona chickens. By 1920 he had moved his poultry operation to Glassell Park  
  • The fate of the original 208 East Adams is unclear; the house is not included in the 1920 or 1930 Federal censuses. City directory listings—save for one, possibly erroneous, in the 1929 edition—cease until a second 208 East Adams house arrived on the lot in 1949. While the imagery is unclear, he house does not seem to appear in aerial photographs taken in 1928
  • It wasn't until after the Depression and World War II that Lot 12 in Block A of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract was redeveloped
  • On December 3, 1948, the Department of Building and Safety issued Helen Ow and Nora Jung, housewives living in the neighborhood who were working with Jewel Homes, an investment firm specializing in the relocation of buildings, a permit to move a 1908 Craftsman cottage and its 1922 two-story addition from 538 North Berendo Street (on Lot 21 in the Pioneer Investment and Trust Company's Windermere Park Tract) to the site of the original 208 East Adams; they were being condemned for the construction of the Hollywood Freeway. The buildings would sit on the westerly 40 feet of the original 50-by-145-foot Lot 12, its easterly 10 feet having been annexed to Lot 13 to provide a parcel that is today occupied by 214 East Adams, a three-story apartment house moved to the site in 1930. The development of Lot 11 on the west side of 208 East Adams was part of Ow and Jung's plan to create an apartment complex at 200/208 East Adams. On the same day they received permits to relocate buildings to 208 East Adams, Ow and Jung were issued permits for the relocation of two duplexes from North Ardmore Avenue, also being condemned for the Hollywood Freeway, to Lot 11. These remain in place today alongside 208 East Adams


The current 208 East Adams—since 1948—actually dates from 1908, its rear section from 1922, both
buildings having been moved to the site in 1949 from the path of the Hollywood Freeway. At
right is a glimpse of two duplexes moved from the freeway's path to 200 East Adams
at the same time. At left is a three-story 1912 apartment house moved to
its site in 1930 from 132 West 25th Street; all of the buildings
occupy ground on which the Montagues farmed.



Illustrations: UCLA Library; Private Collection