233 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1898 on a parcel comprised of Lot 21 and the westerly two feet of Lot 22 of the Daman & Millard Tract by attorney Willoughby Samuel Taylor
  • Will Taylor, who had arrived in Southern California in August 1886 during the Boom of the Eighties. Settling in Santa Ana, he would marry Minnie Cummings there on June 30, 1898. Taylor was then 45, his bride a decade younger. Will was at the time moving to Los Angeles to form a new practice with Edward W. Forgy; the newlyweds lived at 709 West 10th Street while the new house was being completed. On October 1 and 2, 1898, the Los Angeles Times, Evening Express, and Herald all reported that the Taylors were now at home in their new house at 233 East Adams
  • The Taylors, who had no children, appear to have lived quietly at 233 East Adams. One out-of-the-ordinary incident occurred on Sunday evening, February 9, 1902, when, arriving home from church on their bicycles, the Taylors noticed a strange flash of light inside the house. Will looked in through a window, scaring off the perps, who were found to have made off with nothing despite having ransacked a number of rooms
  • From 1906 to 1908, Will and Minnie Taylor shared 233 East Adams with Carl A. Stutsman, an attorney he may have known in Santa Ana, as well as Stutsman's brother Abraham and his sister Carrie. In 1893 Carl Stutsman had left California, returning to live in his native Burlington, Iowa, where he served on the city council and then as mayor during 1901-02. In March 1905 he returned to the west coast, settling in Los Angeles and opening a branch of Stutsman & Stutsman in the O. T. Johnson Building downtown; Abraham Stutsman Sr. oversaw the firm's office in Santa Ana. Carl married in 1908 and moved with his bride Helen and his brother, now in real estate, to 1424 West 30th Street. Stutsman later became a municipal court judge and was promoted to the Superior Court bench in 1931
  • The Taylors lived quietly until the fall of 1910, when they made an interesting real estate swap. On October 23, 1910, the Los Angeles Times reported that Edward and Emily Sanborn of 1115 Ingraham Street, situated on Lot 46 in the St. Paul's P. E. Church Subdivision, had sold their house to the Taylors in a deal that included the two-story, 22-room flat building built in 1902 on the same lot but facing Orange Street (now Wilshire Boulevard). The consideration of $25,000 cited appears to have included 233 East Adams, into which the Sanborns moved
  • Edward Payson Sanborn, a native of Maine, as was his wife, was a retired Ventura County farmer who began investing in Los Angeles real estate. Little more than a year after settling into 233 East Adams, Edward died on January 28, 1912; his funeral was held at 233 three days later. On December 28, 1916, the Sanborns' 38-year-old daughter Elteen married James S. Welch, whose occupation, even well into the automobile age, was noted in some records as "blacksmith"; by 1920 he was a machinist in the oil industry
  • James and Elteen Welch lived with her mother at 233 East Adams for the first six years of their marriage; she died in 1929, he in 1934
  • Mrs. Sanborn was issued at least two permits by the Department of Buildings and its successor, the Department of Building and Safety, for work on 233 East Adams. The first, issued on August 25, 1917, authorized the construction of a 14-by-20-foot garage; the second, dated April 4, 1933, allowed for interior replastering
  • Emily Sanborn was still living at 233 East Adams when she died at home on February 4, 1945, at the age of 94. Her obituary appearing in the Times three days later described her as having lived at 233 fifteen years longer than she actually had, but also mentioned that she and her husband arrived in California in 1868 after sailing around Cape Horn
  • The ownership of 233 East Adams after the death of Emily Sanborn is unclear, but actor Garland L. Brunton occupied the house from soon after the departure of Mrs. Sanborn until the mid 1950s. Brunton had at least one Broadway credit, appearing as a servant, "Nicholas Sugarsop," alongside Shepperd Strudwick in Falstaff, which opened in December 1928 with Charles Coburn in the title role. Brunton was described as a film actor when—then divorced and living with his mother in Alhambra—he was enumerated in the 1940 Federal census. He lived in Downey during the war, working there at Vultee Aircraft; while his film roles are not recorded in the usual movie databases, one source describes him as having become a writer and producer for radio as well as a songwriter "of note." Brunton appears to have moved into 233 with a recent wife, Mary, and to have left with another, Hortense, with whom he is buried at Hollywood Cemetery. (Brunton's career does not seem to have flourished; East Adams Boulevard—as East Adams Street had been redesignated in the 1920s—was seriously déclassé by the time he moved into 233, and he and Hortense would be moving on to a house atop even more rapidly declining Bunker Hill)
  • By 1956, 233 East Adams would be occupied by its longest-term owner, Lue Corpuz, who would become a remarkable neighborhood fixture. Mrs. Corpuz rented rooms in the house, charging tenants little or nothing; she became known as "Mama Lue." Over several decades, in addition to waving a Bible while preaching at the corner of Broadway and Eighth Street, Mama Lue collected food and supplies to help the homeless, which, in the end, would lead to tragedy
  • Mrs. Corpuz managed to save enough money for maintenance and repairs on 233 East Adams over the years. She was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on March 11, 1966, to address apparent substandard conditions in the house; curiously, the document noted that the building was being converted from use as a "hotel" back into a dwelling and that the property was located in a "Riot Area" (a reference to the Watts Uprising of the previous August)
  • On October 1, 1968, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mrs. Corpuz a permit to repair fire damage to the house, now officially a duplex, a certificate of occupancy for it being issued on March 4, 1969. (The house's second address became 231 East Adams)
  • On October 10, 1968, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mrs. Corpuz a permit for the demolition of the garage
  • Mrs. Corpuz later embarked on a major upgrade to the 92-year-old 233 East Adams, alterations no doubt necessary but unfortunately architecturally compromising. On December 31, 1990, the Department of Building and Safety issued her a permit for a new roof and to replace 28 windows, though most noticeable was the exterior stuccoing of the building. This action destroyed—as it just recently had that of 237 East Adams next door and 243 East Adams next to that—the effect of the house's original wooden texture of shingles and clapboard
  • Sadly, after 40 years, Lue Corpuz's time at 233 East Adams came to an end. With a basement electrical short thought to be the cause, fire broke out in the house at 2 a.m. on January 2, 1996. According to the Los Angeles Times the next day, "The house did not have smoke detectors. Firefighters said 'pack rat conditions'—bags of clothing, blankets and furniture—inside the house fed the fire and hampered rescue efforts. [According to firefighters] 'It was difficult gaining access into the structure initially because of the items stacked behind the doors.' In their rescue efforts, firefighters threw mattresses and furniture out the windows. Corpuz's body was found in the front hallway"
  • 233 East Adams Boulevard was purchased from Mrs. Corpuz's estate by William Armstrong, who was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on July 24, 1996, for restoration after the fire six months before.




The Taylor house was very modern for 1898, the designer
eschewing the still-prevalent Victorian mode of asymmetry and
turrets. It has lost its original texture of shingles and clapboard under
a layer of gray stucco but retains its porch and bay windows. Below is
an image of the tragic fire of January 2, 1996, that appeared in the
Los Angeles Times the next day. Hoarder conditions including
including appliances on the lawn hindered rescue efforts.




 Illustrations: Private Collection; UCLADL; LAT