1475 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1902 on Lot 13 of the Kenwood Park Tract as 1475 West Adams Street by banker Newman Essick; moved by Essick in 1905 to a parcel comprised of the westerly 40 feet of Lot 13 and the easterly 20 feet of Lot 14 in the West Acres Tract, where it became, and remains, 1636 West 25th Street
  • Architect/builder: Frederick R. Black, whose family had developed their ancestral Hooper Tract on the eastern reaches of Adams Boulevard, including 1315, 1321, 1323, 1325, 1331 and 1335 East Adams, the last, Black's own home built in 1904 and still standing, is of a design similar to the Essick house now on West 25th Street 
  • On June 28, 1902, the Los Angeles Herald reported that H. [sic] Essick had received a permit from the Superintendent of Buildings for an eight-room residence at 1471 [sic] West Adams Street (as the Boulevard was then designated)   
  • After a rapid series of professional moves, Newman Essick, via the Union Bank of Savings and Merchants' National, became the assistant cashier of the newly formed Commercial National Bank, which opened in November 1903. Essick was also very active in the First Presbyterian Church, then at the southeast corner of Figueroa and West 20th streets; in a disagreement with the current minister, he was among those who would secede from the church and before long join the congregation of the Grand View Presbyterian Church around the corner from 1475 West Adams at Vermont Avenue and 23rd Street. In 1905, the consolidated Grand View congregation built a new church building on a parcel comprised of Lots 9 and 10 of the Kenwood Park Tract, 100 feet east of Essick's house. Also in 1905, perhaps seeking a quieter neighborhood in spite of his support of Grand View Presbyterian's move, Essick made plans to relocate 1475 West Adams several block west to the West Acres subdivision
  • On July 20, 1905, the Superintendent of Building issued a permit to Newman Essick to move 1475 West Adams to 1636 West 25th Street. Frederick R. Black was in charge of repairs to the house after it was situated on its new foundation. It appears that there may have originally been an open porch at the upstairs right corner of the façade of 1475 West Adams/1636 West 25th that was enclosed at some point after its arrival on West 25th Street in 1905
  • On August 23, 1909, the Department of Buildings issued investor William Boyd, who had, in 1906, acquired the now vacant Lot 13 of the Kenwood Park Tract as well as Lots 14 and 15, comprising a parcel extending west to the Romeo Street corner, a permit to move 1483 West Adams from Lot 15 to Lot 13, the former site of 1475 West Adams. On Lot 13—though with its yard still including the property to the Romeo corner—what had been 1483 West Adams was redesignated 1473 



Illustration: Private Collection