1733 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 43 and the west 15 feet of Lot 44 of the Granada Tract by Claire S. and Lewis C. Carlisle
  • Lewis Carlisle was in partnership with his brother Horace and their father James in the local planing mill known as James Carlisle & Sons, established in Los Angeles in 1896 after the family moved from Minneapolis. The sons seems not only to have been lumber suppliers but to have acted as contractors for their own houses and others they built on spec; Lewis lived only briefly at 1733, during which time he completed 1725 West Adams next door and moved into that house in 1902 before selling it in April 1904
  • Lewis Carlisle sold 1733 West Adams to Jane B. Richardson in 1902; Mrs. Richardson, a widow, had recently arrived in Los Angeles from Clarksville, Nebraska, along with her sons Davis, Lewis, Frank, and William and niece Kathryn Ramsburgh. The brothers formed Richardson Brothers, mining investors. Jane Richardson would outlive all of her sons but William, remaining at 1733 until her own death there at 90 on March 30, 1925. A curiously large news item in the Times the next day—perhaps 90-somethings were that unusual then—was headlined SHOCK OF RECENT FALL PROVES FATAL TO NONAGENARIAN and described a tumble of Mrs. Richardson took two years before and the one 10 days before that led to her death


Our interpretation of the original configuration of 1733 West Adams appears at top; the house is
seen obliquley just above with the solar panels installed in early 2017 that seemed to be
preparing it for its next 116 years. At left is 1739 West Adams, built in 1911. 


  • The Richardson family retained ownership of 1733 West Adams as rental property for the next nine years; William E. Richardson is listed at the address in the 1932 city directory. Also associated with 1733 in various records is William's cousin Kathryn Ramsburgh, who had lived with her aunt Jane Richardson in the house for many years before marrying mining engineer Harry A. Walton circa 1928. (Harry Walton was a son of Frederick Walton of 755 West Adams.) Although living in Beverly Hills in 1930, the Waltons were registered to vote at 1733 that year
  • On March 27, 1933, the Department of Building and Safety issued Kathryn Walton a permit to build a new garage at the rear of the property; this appears to be a replacement for one that her aunt had built in 1911
  • Tenants at 1733 West Adams after the death of Jane Richardson and her niece's move to an apartment on Orchard Street included a religious sect typical of 1920s Los Angeles called the Home of Truth. In the 1927 city directory, the organization, headquartered in another old house at 1975 West Washington, was also listed at 1733 West Adams under "Asylums and Homes." (The sect's founder, Mrs. Annie Rix Militz, had her followers believing that she would, like Christ, be resurrected after her death to continue her ministry. This does not seem to have happened after her demise in June 1924)
  • Renting 1733 West Adams for a few years from 1928 was Oliver H. Warner, a bookkeeper at an ice plant. Warner lived in the house with his wife Rose and his mother Alice, who died at home on January 6, 1930. In a clear but hardly unique sign of the decline in the fortunes of the West Adams district, Ollie and Rose Warner ran a rooming house, having in April 1930 no fewer than 12 lodgers under their roof in addition to themselves 


The contents of 1733 West Adams were auctioned on November 15, 1933, as advertised in the
  Los Angeles Times three days before. It seems that "Owner leaving for South America"
refers to William E. Richardson, a mining investor with international interests,
who appears to have inherited the house from his mother in 1925.


  • By 1934, 1733 West Adams had been acquired by husband-and-wife chiropractors Charles F. and Sophia L. Hennings. On November 15, 1933, an auction was held in the house; an advertisement in the Times on November 12 noted that "Owner [is] leaving for South American and will dispose of eleven rooms of furniture." Among the furniture listed is "Physician's equipment"; perhaps a tenant had left some items that wound up helping sell the Henningses on the house
  • The doctors Hennings set up their practice at 1733 West Adams and lived on the premises; over the years, they would be renting some rooms out. Charles Hennings died on January 3, 1948. Sophia Hennings was still living at 1733 when she died on October 18, 1855
  • Sophia Hennings's brother, Louis O. Waddell, was listed at 1733 West Adams in the 1956 city directory. In 1959, advertisements began appearing the Los Angeles Sentinel offering the house for sale. Zoning permitted its use as a business; ads suggested its adaptability as a rooming house, guest house, rest home, club house, or nursery school
  • 1733 West Adams continued as multi-unit housing; by 1967, it had been acquired by Susie Hernandez, who would retain it for the next 30 years; on May 8, 1968, the Department of Building and Safety issued "Suzie" Hernanadez a permit to built yet another garage replacement
  • Maria M. Aguiluz, who may have been related to Susie Hernandez, appears to have become the owner of 1733 circa 2000. During her ownership, Aguiluz had elaborately fenced and landscaped the front yard of the property; she was still the owner when, on December 28, 2016, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit to her to add solar panels to the west-facing side of the house's hip roof. Curiously, scarcely a year after the completion of this installation, the house had been acquired by the Tripalink Corporation, a Los Angeles–based real estate startup founded by U.S.C. graduates in 2016 to build co-living spaces for students and young professionals
  • On February 15, 1918, the Department of Building and Safety issued the Tripalink Corporation a demolition permit for the 116-year-old 1733 West Adams and its garage; the lot appears to have already begun being cleared. Tripalink immediately began the construction of three three-story duplex units in a "Modern Dingbat" style—addressed 1729 and 1729½, 1731 and 1731½, and 1733 and 1733½—that now exploit, with a bare minimum of landscaping, the entire lot once occupied by a single family dwelling, a trend perhaps properly addressing the housing crisis in 21st-century Los Angeles but which threatens thousands of vintage residences


November 2017

January 2018



March 2019




Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; Google Street View