1131 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1900 on a parcel comprised of Lot 2 and part of Lot 1 of Leonard Merrill's Adams Street Tract as a speculative project by real estate developer Leonard Merrill. It was sold to lawyer and oil operator Oliver Adelbert Ivers in January 1901
  • The Los Angeles Times, Herald, and Express all reported during the spring, summer, and fall of 1900 that Leonard Merrill was developing his small triangular tract on the north side of Adams Street (as the Boulevard was officially designated until the mid-1920s) between Hoover Street and Magnolia Avenue, with its westerly point at the intersection of the now-decommissioned Quincy Street. (Designated as "Little Adams Street" on some early maps and in later years as West 25th Place, Quincy Street was a one-block extension of Adams due east of Magnolia Avenue, where Adams Street/Boulevard itself turns 30° south going east.) Two houses, 1131 and 1141 West Adams, were described as being built by Merrill as speculative offerings
  • On February 12, 1901, the Los Angeles Herald reported that "No. 1131 West Adams street, with the lot upon which it stands, has been purchased by A. O. [sic] Ivers...through the agency of Leonard Merrill, and will be occupied as a home by the purchaser.... The price paid for the property was $11,000. The dwelling is new and thoroughly modern. It is of the Mission style of architecture. The lower [interior] floor of the building is finished in oak; the upper floor in Shasta pine. The home is two stories high, with basement and attic, and is a typical Southern California home."
  • A business partner of banker Ozro W. Childs, Oliver A. Ivers was an oil and real estate investor who had been widowed in August 1900 and left with a 16-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. He had been renting a house in the Westlake District when he purchased 1131 West Adams; he was also wasting no time in getting married again. Julia Crawford Van Trees had only just been divorced from architect Frank Sawyer Van Trees, who was becoming known for his big houses in San Francisco. Ivers and Mrs. Van Trees were married in Yuma in June 1901
  • Suffering from Bright's disease, Oliver Ivers died at 1131 West Adams on February 3, 1902; he was 41
  • If not while living at 1131 West Adams Ivers's recent bride and now widow would go on to become a Hollywood pioneer, active in the early silent era as a screenwriter, producer, and director. Her son James Crawford Van Trees became a cinematographer and a president of the American Society of Cinematographers; her grandson James Van Trees Jr. became a visual effects cameraman. Having begun divesting herself of many of her husband's properties, Mrs. Ivers sold 1131 West Adams in 1905; she moved to the Westlake district
  • Mary Jane Rankin, a widow and a philanthropist, bought 1131 West Adams in February 1905, moving into the house with her widowed niece Jane Elizabeth Lecky Fullwood, known as Jennie. Mrs. Rankin's husband, a well-heeled St. Louis lawyer, had died in 1886; Mrs. Fullwood's husband, a well-regarded sports journalist back in Pittsburg (as the name of the Pennsylvania city was spelled at the time), had died in 1893
  • Mrs. Rankin was a benefactor of Occidental College and of Immanuel Presbyterian Church, to which she gave a Sunday school building in 1901
  • On March 24, 1905, the Express reported that Mrs. Rankin had been issued a permit to build a one-story shed at the rear of 1131 West Adams
  • After Mary J. Rankin died at 1131 West Adams on October 3, 1911, she left the bulk of her $200,000 estate (the equivalent of $5.5 million today) to Mrs. Fullwood; she left a house at 1718 South Flower Street—next to her former home at 1722—to the Reverend Hugh Kelso Walker, pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church
  • On April 7, 1913, Jennie Fullwood was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to replace a wooden porch floor with cement; on March 8, 1919, she was issued a permit to build a garage at the rear of the house. Mrs. Fullwood had minor alterations done during the 1920s
  • It could be that Jennie Fullwood may have had a yen for the Reverend Hugh Walker for many years. Walker was now pastor of the First Presbyterian Church on Figueroa Street; his wife Lizzie, with whom he had had eight children, died on December 19, 1936. Understandably wasting no time given their ages, but still waiting a respectable year, Dr. Walker, 77, and Mrs. Fullwood, 78, married in January 1938. The Reverend, who had been living at 818 West Adams, moved up the street to 1131
  • Having turned 84 two days before, Jennie Lecky Fullwood Walker died at 1131 West Adams on June 30, 1943
  • Immediately after the 1942 bankruptcy of Mark's Credit Clothing Company, his Chicago-area chain of women's, men's, and appliance stores, Mark L. Appelman and his wife Sonya relocated to Los Angeles, although his legal troubles would continue for years to come. The Appelmans settled in the Wilshire District, apparently having stashed away enough cash to buy a jewelry store on Central Avenue near the southeast corner of its intersection with Vernon Avenue. On April 21, 1945, the Pittsburgh Courier reported that Mr. Appelman had been taken into custody by F.B.I. agents "on a fugitive warrant charging that he concealed $80,000 in cash in a bankruptcy action" back in Illinois, apparently in safe-deposit boxes. He was released on a $20,000 bond pending his return to Chicago. On February 21, 1947, the Chicago Daily Tribune reported under the headline "Pretends He's Broke" that "Mark Appelman, 55, of Los Angeles, was sentenced to 20 months in prison on a charge of concealing the assets of Mark's Clothing Company...." It is unclear if Appelman wound up serving any time in Joliet or anywhere else. Meanwhile, down on Central Avenue, with the jewelry shop now having become or being supplemented by Ray's Clothing Store, the Los Angeles Sentinel reported on May 1, 1947, that Appelman was being accused of racially discriminatory hiring practices. The slippery Appelmans somehow managed to buy a house at 1343 Longwood Avenue by 1947 as well both 1141 and 1131 West Adams as rental properties by 1950—and to retain them for many years
  • By early 1967, 1131 West Adams, along with 1141, had been acquired by the recently formed Atlantic Richfield Company, with Mobil Oil having acquired the northwest corner of Adams and Hoover, including the sites of 1101 and 1109 West Adams
  • On February 23, 1967, the Department of Building and Safety issued Atlantic Richfield permits to demolish both 1141 and 1131 West Adams
  • Mobil built a filling station on its Adams/Hoover property in late 1967; it is unclear as to whether Arco followed suit on its property that had included the sites of 1131 and 1141. By 1977, Arco's property had been acquired by a real estate investor who created a parking lot and opened a coin-operated car wash there in 1978. This lasted until 1984
  • The one-time site of 1131 West Adams (and those of 1141 and 1151) was acquired by the nearby Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church, which had ambitious plans for an $8,000,000 120-unit apartment complex for seniors that would be built on the former path of Little Adams/Quincy/West 25th Place, with its front gardens along Adams Boulevard. Ground for Ward Villas was broken in late 1989; it opened in January 1992



Illustrations: Private Collection; LOC