620 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1937 as the second house on Lot 8 in Block 1 of Daman & Millard's Subdivision of the Shaw Tract by restaurant manager Hong Ang Lew
  • Architect: James H. Hoose
  • The first 620 East Adams was built in 1895 by John Clinton Bewley, whose John C. Bewley & Company, with an office in the Bradbury Building, provided stenographic, notarial, and collection services. Bewley, a bachelor, lived at 620 with his sisters Marietta and Estell and his brother Clarence. During the family's time at 620, Marietta was a medical student; in 1900, the year the family would be leaving 620, she was graduated from U.S.C.'s College of Medicine as one of the era's rare female M.D.s. In November the house was sold to Harry H. Coffman
  • Harry Hamilton Coffman was the manager of the local office of International Correspondence Schools, based in Scranton, Pennsylvania; he and his wife Clara Butterworth Coffman appear to have lived at 620 East Adams only briefly, with their children and his mother, before Mrs. Coffman's brother Claude Butterworth, a bookkeeper, and his wife Pearle moved in
  • After what appear to be renters, telephone-company lineman Forman M. Grant bought 620 East Adams in 1908. On April 15 of that year the Department of Buildings issued Grant a permit to build an earthen-floored 14-by-20-foot shed on the lot. Grant, his wife Emma, and their daughter Edna remained at 620 until moving to southeast Arizona, having become interested in mining and agriculture
  • The relatively small size of the first 620 East Adams made it useful as a rental property and attractive to couples. Ownership after the departure of Forman Grant is unclear; apparent renters from that point until 1922 included shoemaker Max Golden and automobile-top maker James Greenfield
  • By 1922, 620 East Adams was being rented by lumberman John X. McDonald and his wife Matilda. Over the years the McDonalds, in connection with his railroad-connected business, had lived in Arizona, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Now retiring to Los Angeles, Canadian-born John McDonald (his name sometimes spelled MacDonald) lived quietly at 620 until his death on January 18, 1929, while his wife was recuperating from a serious automobile accident just a month before. Mrs. McDonald lived a bit larger than her husband during her sunset years, appearing in press items in connection with club events during the '20s. Her obituary in the Los Angeles Times two days after her death in a rest home on November 29, 1933, was rather lengthy, describing her as a musician, author, and clubwoman who (somewhat confusingly) had lived in Los Angeles for "the last thirty-eight years." Apparently a well-known pianist and soprano, she had studied at Cal and the Sorbonne. Her affiliations included the genteel Friday Morning Club as well as many other social and literary groups. At one time, the Times allowed, Mrs. McDonald served as vice-president of the League of American Pen Women
  • The last occupant of the first 620 East Adams was Sadie Duncan and her son Conley, a sheet-metal worker, who were moving from a previous rental across the street at 623. The Duncans left 620 after the purchase of the property by Hong Ang Lew in 1937 
  • Hong Ang Lew, a restaurant manager, had plans to build a modern residence to replace the original 620 East Adams. Rather than demolish the 42-year-old cottage, Lew sold it to Mrs. Georgia Miller Hellberg, who (as "Mrs. Georgia Miller") was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on June 9, 1937, to truck the house 61 blocks south to 8703 South Hoover Street, where it stands today, as seen below. (In 1958, Mrs. Hellberg would have a second small house moved to her property all the way from Van Nuys)
  • Los Angeles–based Pacific Systems Homes (formerly Pacific Ready-Cut Homes) has been described as being at one time the country's largest builder of prefabricated houses. (The company is reputed to also have made, due to an owner's son's interest in surfboarding, the world's first mass-produced surfboards in the 1930s, initially under the Swastika brand—a name soon changed Waikiki.) The company's factory was at 5800 South Boyle Avenue in Vernon, with a sales office being maintained at Wilshire Boulevard and Wilton Place, out of which the paperwork for Ang Lew's new house would be processed. James H. Hoose was among the architects hired by Pacific Systems to produce its variety of designs
  • On June 4, 1937, five days before the original 620 East Adams was authorized for removal from its lot, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits for a new house and single-car garage on the property. Ang Lew's name as owner on the document is written as "Lew Hong Wing," with, in un-Westernized style, his surname first; his address given is that of Pacific System's office at 4005 Wilshire. The house was to be a $3,900 one-story, five-room stucco building measuring 40 by 37 feet
  • The Lew family appears to still own 620 East Adams Boulevard in 2020; unique in the neighborhood in terms of design—and in origin as a product of Pacific Systems Homes—the house has retained its original appearance and has remained in excellent repair
  • On July 1, 1966, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit for 620 East Adams to "Lew Hong Wing"—just as the name appeared on the original permits issued for the house 29 years before—for a 14-by-16-foot addition to the rear southeast corner of the house and a rearward extension to the garage
While visually undetectable, the bones of the house sitting today at 8703 South Hoover Street are
125 years old; the building was moved from 620 East Adams Boulevard in 1937 to make
way for the current dwelling on that lot. The separate residence seen at right was
relocated to South Hoover from Van Nuys by the same owner in 1958.



 Illustrations: Private Collection