222 East Adams Boulevard


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  • Built ca. 1887 by developer John Weber on Lot 15 in Block A of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract as his own home
  • On September 7, 1887, the Los Angeles Times reported that John Weber had recently bought Lots 14 and 15 of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract. It is presumed that Weber built his house on Lot 15 soon after. The building was indicated as 26 East Adams in the 1890 city directory, that year becoming 222 East Adams Street after new street numbering regulations began to be adopted citywide. On March 31, 1890, the Evening Express reported that John Weber was issued a permit for an addition to 26 East Adams
  • Born in Indiana on January 23, 1852, John Weber married native Angeleno Augusta Shaw on October 10, 1883; per his 1933 obituary, she was the "only daughter of one of the first citrus growers of Los Angeles County." Two sons soon arrived, Elmer just over the wire on July 21, 1884, and Clarence on January 28, 1886. Elmer never married and would remain living with his parents for decades. Clarence married late, taking as his wife Aurelia Castruccio, a daughter of the first Italian consul in Los Angeles, on November 12, 1917. The newlyweds moved into 222 East Adams Street. The Times had reported in September of that year that Elmer had won first prize for his dahlias at a flower show held at Hamburger's department store downtown; he was otherwise employed as a wholesale drug buyer. John Weber's business interest turned from real estate development in Los Angeles to the same in Pomona as he took a role in his wife's family's citrus ranching, as would Clarence Weber later on 
  • The extended Weber family left 222 East Adams Street in 1929, when they moved to 1942 South Hobart Boulevard in West Adams Heights. The Webers' crosstown trajectory would reflect the demographic changes and economic decline during the 1920s of South Los Angeles, as would Clarence and Aurelia's move from South Hobart to Hancock Park by 1945. There they would live at 303 North June Street. Elmer remained on South Hobart Boulevard even after his parents had died, John Weber in 1933 and Aurelia in 1936. In 1955 he moved to 303 North June Street to live with his widowed brother, selling the West Adams Heights house, which, as that neighborhood declined even further with plans for the divisive Santa Monica Freeway afoot, was then converted by a new owner into an old-age home. The Weber family's moves provide one of the many illustrations of the westward migration of pioneer families from beyond the original limits of the city of Los Angeles as incorporated on April 4, 1850
  • On April 1, 1922, the Department of Buildings issued John Weber a permit to add one room to 222 East Adams Street
  • Over time John Weber had acquired four contiguous lots on East Adams Street, which included Lots 14-17 of in Block A of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract. In 1923 he began a complicated redevelopment of these sites, including that of his own house at 222. On March 10, 1923, he was issued a permit to move his 1½-story garage, which had been built on his Lot 14 next door, to the rear of 222 on Lot 15. A permit was then issued to him on April 2 for the relocation of a 16-room, four-family flat building, built in 1914, from 209-211 West 30th Street eastward to Lot 14, becoming 220 East Adams. Earlier, in January, he had shifted the house on Lot 16, numbered 226 East Adams, to the rear and slightly east to become 228, straddling Lots 16 and 17; he then had the house built at 216 West 27th Street moved to the front of Lot 16 to become the new 226. In another eastwardly crosstown house move, he relocated 207 West 25th Street to the front of Lot 17, becoming 230 East Adams. (Interestingly, in 1930, a John McNamara, who lived not far away at 2108 Maple Avenue, would move a three-story, 42-room apartment building from 132 West 25th Street to Lot 13, next to 220, to become 214 East Adams; this building still stands as of May 2024)
  • Occupying 222 East Adams Boulevard by 1930—the thoroughfare had by now been upgraded in status from mere Street—and likely renting from John Weber was English-born carpenter William Pattinson and his family. The Pattinsons were succeeded by another carpenter, Isaac Losee, who was also renting the house. Norton Ray Pixton and his wife Gladys lived at 222 East Adams during the 1940s and '50s
  • 222 East Adams Boulevard, together with 220, 226, 228, and 230, were demolished per permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety to Lifetime Savings & Loan Association on May 14, 1965. An 88-bed convalescent hospital building, still standing today, began construction in mid 1969. Its site also involved the demolition of the duplex at 234-235 East Adams on Lot 18


Illustration: LOC