1245 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1905 by Joseph Henry Bohon on a parcel comprised of Lot 7 and the easterly half of Lot 8, Block 2, of the Urmston Tract. On April 16, 1905, the Los Angeles Times reported that Bohon, who had been investing heavily in real estate after a career as an innkeeper, "is having erected a twelve-room, two story frame residence to cost $9,700, from plans prepared by Myron Hunt and Elmer Gray [sic], at No. 1245 West Adams Street." The Herald printed a similar report citing Hunt & Grey. While the architect may have indeed been Hunt & Grey, Myron Hunt was often confused, as he is now, with architect Sumner P. Hunt, no relation, as their two firms, Hunt & Grey and Hunt & Eager were and are confused with each other and with Sumner Hunt's earlier partnership with Theodore P. Eisen. No original building permit is currently available for possible verification, but given that Sumner P. Hunt appears to have built several of the family's nearby houses, including 1257 West Adams on an adjacent parcel for Mr. and Mrs. Albert Crutcher the year before—Bohon's wife, née Eleanor Page, was a cousin of Mrs. Crutcher—and that the Sumner Hunts, the Bohons, and the Crutchers were often mentioned together in social coverage, it seems fairly logical to consider that Sumner Hunt's firm was the designer of 1245 West Adams
  • Joseph Bohon had arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1890s to manage the Hotel Westminster; after eight years there, he married Eleanor Page in Memphis on June 21, 1898, and then spent the next four in Redlands as the secretary and manager of the Casa Loma Hotel. Returning to the city in late 1903, Bohon acquired 1225—today, 1235 West Adams—from attorney Lynn Helm; their third daughter, Henryetta, was born on April 3, 1904. After moving his family into 1245, 1225 became the home of his mother-in-law, Margaret Eleanor Page, and her unmarried daughter Decatur Page
  • While the family was at dinner during the early evening hours of Thanksgiving 1909, a bold intruder managed to get into 1245 West Adams through the attic using a ladder left by painters. The Record reported the next day that the thief had collected $132 worth of jewelry and cash before coming upon a maid, who screamed. As he ran toward the front door, he encountered Mrs. Bohon, pulling a gun on her as he fled the house. In the meantime, having retreived his own revolver, Mr. Bohon fired two shots at the exiting burglar, missing him. Six days later, on December 1, the perp struck again, this time at 814 East Adams Street, where the owner captured him after a hand-to-hand battle. The next day Fred Murray confessed to police, admitting to 14 similar burglaries in affluent neighborhoods of the city
  • In 1912, a garage was added to the property; in a joint deal, Bohon and Albert Crutcher of 1257 had builder Clinton Campbell erect adjacent outbuildings on their lots under a single permit issued by the Department of Buildings for the address 1249 West Adams on May 4, 1912
  • The Bohons' eldest of three daughters, Eleanor, was married to Carl M. Heintz at 1245 West Adams on January 20, 1922
  • On July 18, 1923, the Department of Buildings issued Bohon a permit to add a bath to 1245, among other proposed alterations; the firm hired was that of Sumner P. Hunt, whom we suspect may have been the original designer of the house rather than the unrelated architect Myron Hunt, with whom he was frequently confused, as mentioned earlier. Sumner Hunt was now in partnership with Silas Reese Burns Jr.
  • Joseph H. Bohon died at 1245 West Adams on August 4, 1924, unexpectedly, at the age of 61 
  • Mrs. Page, along with Decatur, had been living at 1245 for several years before she died at 1245 West Adams on April 19, 1931. She was 89
  • Henryetta Bohon married Edward G. Miller quietly in Santa Ana on July 2, 1926; Henry Bohon Miller, named after his grandfather, was born on April 9, 1927. The Millers were divorced before the end of the decade. Henryetta married Harry B. Fogarty, 14 years her senior, at 1245 West Adams on September 15, 1932
  • Still living at 1245 West Adams, Eleanor Page Bohon died in Los Angeles on September 13, 1938
  • The flight of the affluent from West Adams to newer suburbs that began in the 1920s and was accelerated by the Depression left only a few stalwarts in the drastically  deteriorating district—Kate Crutcher next door at 1257, for example, would remain until her death 16 years later, even with most of her neighboring houses having been turned into multi-unit dwellings. Renting 1245 West Adams in 1940 was James W. Hunter, a purchasing agent for a meatpacker, whose wife, Vera, ran the house as a lodging facility with five tenants including a bookkeeper, a radio technician, and a pin-setter at a bowling alley. During 1942, the "immaculate, spacious home of beauty" was being advertised as providing child care. This use of the house was formalized on June 28, 1951, when the Department of Building and Safety issued a certificate of occupancy to the current owner, Jessie Stark, to rezone the first floor to allow its use as a day nursery, while maintaining the second floor for single-family residential use
  • 1245 West Adams was being advertised for sale in the Los Angeles Sentinel in the summer of 1954 as an eight-bedroom, three-bath dwelling; price, $27,500 ($256,000 today); in 2018, the house was being estimated on real-estate websites as being worth $1,738,000

Illustration: Private Collection