1506 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 6 of the Montgomery Tract by Addison Blanchard Day
  • Architect: Locke & Munsell (Seymour E. Locke and William A. O. Munsell)
  • On April 28, 1901, the Herald reported that Addison Day had just bought the unimproved Lot 6 of the Montgomery Tract, paying $1,000 
  • On June 5, 1901, the Herald reported that Locke & Munsell had designed a one-story, five-room frame residence for Addison Day, one measuring 28½ by 55½ feet, and that the Superintendent of Buildings had issued a permit to allow construction to begin. The budget was $2,000
  • On September 21, 1912, the Department of Buildings issued A. B. Day a permit to add a 14-by-14-foot room to the rear of the house and to excavate an 8-by-9-foot brick-walled cellar
  • Addison B. Day had begun working his way to the top of the utilities industry as a gas-appliance salesman for the Los Angeles Lighting Company in 1895; in 1901, the year he built 1506 West Adams, Day became chief clerk of the Los Angeles Electric Company. As the consolidation of the city's power industry evolved, Day moved up the ladder steadily. By the time of his decision to leave 1506 in 1925 he had become vice-president and general manager of the Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corporation
  • Addison Day married Mabel C. Godfrey on March 14, 1900, five days before his 26th birthday; she was 20. Their first of two sons, Herbert Godfrey Day, was born at 1506 West Adams on August 3, 1904. Robert Addison Day was born on July 16, 1915


Addison Blanchard Day died on November 28, 1939.
Before his death, Day had become president
and general manger of Los Angeles Gas
& Electric and then Chairman
of the Board of Southern
California Gas.


  • Despite being able to claim membership in Los Angeles's social old guard and despite his considerable business profile and club affiliations, Addison and Mabel Day appear to have been unpretentious, declining listings in the Southwest Blue Book and in its lesser rival, the Los Angeles Blue Book, and remaining in their modest cottage in West Adams, a district well on its way to social obscurity as new subdivisions with newer housing stocks opened to the north and west, until early 1926. Mr. Day was totally blind in his right eye, which may have created a shyness on the dinner-party circuit but clearly not in business, philanthropy, or clubdom. In addition to his career in industry, he was on the boards of numerous companies, among them Industrial Fuel Supply, Southern California Gas, Union Bank & Trust Company, and Pacific Indemnity. Day was a past president and director of the All-Year Club of Southern California, past president and director of the Los Angeles Community Welfare Federation, and a trustee of the University of Southern California. He was a member of the California Club, the Jonathan Club. and served as president of the very excusive Beach Club (the "BC"). Musically minded, he took an interest in the welfare of the Los Angeles Philharmonic
  • West Adamsites had begin defecting to newer residential developments to the north and west as early as before World War I and after the opening of subdivisions such as Windsor Square, Fremont Place (both in 1911) and Hancock Park (1920). On October 30, 1925, Addison Day was issued a permit for a new house at 118 North June Street in Hancock Park; he and Mabel were in their new house by early 1926
  • Purchasing 1506 West Adams from the Days was Swedish-born watchmaker Peter Hendrikson, who had bought 1510 next door in 1924. Renting 1506 during 1929 and 1930 was foundry worker Alfredo Felici and his family. On July 20, 1929, Felici was struck by a car at the corner of North Broadway and Alpine in Chinatown; he suffered a fractured skull and other injuries and was listed in ciritical condition after being taken to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, but he survived
  • On May 21, 1926, Peter Hendrikson was issued a permit for interior alterations to 1506 West Adams
  • Peter Hendrikson appears to have retained ownership of 1506 West Adams until after World War II. Occupying the house in the early 1940s were Earl and Maude Donovan, with Edmund and Carolina Jusatus in residence from 1944 to 1950. During the '50s Dr. Javier Pelaez lived in the house
  • Ownership and occupancy of 1506 West Adams for the next 43 years is unclear, though a My Thi Diem had acquired the house by 1993
  • On January 20, 1993, the Department of Building and Safety issued My Thi Diem a demolition permit for 1506 West Adams
  • On February 5, 1997, the Department of Building and Safety issued Armando Sivilla of Downey a permit for the two-story duplex that now occupies the site of Addison Day's 1901 cottage. The current building is addressed 1506-1508 West Adams


An outline of the cottage built at 1506 West Adams in 1901 appeared
on the demolition permit for the house issued in January 1993.



Illustrations: Private Collection; LOC; Gas News; LADBS