1151 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1901 on a parcel comprised of Lots 4, 5, and 6 of Leonard Merrill's Adams Street Tract; the house was a speculative project of real estate operator Leonard Merrill. It was moved across the street to its present location, 1180 West Adams, in 1912
  • Architect: Dennis & Farwell (Oliver Dennis and Lyman Farwell)
  • A rendering of 1151 West Adams, as seen above, appeared in the Los Angeles Herald on April 18, 1901, with a report on its construction including its building cost of $3,500; the house was then advertised for sale, though it would be occupied by Merrill and his family until it was sold. In a complicated series of reports, newspapers noted the sale of 1151 in June 1903 to Allie Thompson, wife of Archibald G. Thompson, a former Pomona-area orchardist who had moved to Los Angeles to manage the Automobile Livery Company. The Thompsons, who by then had seven of their eventual nine children, did not stay long, moving to 2820 Menlo Avenue nearby. The Express of July 16, 1904, reported that Leonard Merrill, acting as agent, sold 1151 for the Thompsons to a J. M. Davis, lately of Oakland, for $12,000. It is unclear as to whether this transaction was actually completed or whether Davis ever occupied the house. Leonard Merrill, perhaps having decided to buy it back from the Thompsons to remarket it, appear to have moved back into 1151 for a short time until selling the house. On April 2, 1905, the Times reported that Leonard Merrill's wife, Susan, had just sold it to Frederick W. Johnson of Riverside for $15,000. Johnson was yet another short-termer at 1151. Apparently becoming the property of real estate man William Z. McDonald, the house was rented from 1907 until being acquired by investor Maude Rice Ibbetson of 1190 West Adams across the street in 1912
  • On June 10, 1912, the Department of Buildings issued a relocation permit to Maude Rice Ibbetson to move 1151 across the street to Lot 1 of the Niles Tract, where its former east side was turned to face the street. Here in the former side yard of 1190, which Mrs. Ibbetson had built in 1900, it became 1180 West Adams
  • Decades later the one-time site of 1151 West Adams was acquired by the Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church at Magnolia Avenue and West 25th Street, 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 West 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



Illustration: LAH