1737-39 West Adams Boulevard

PLEASE ALSO SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES
FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO ADAMS BOULEVARD, CLICK HERE




  • Built in 1911 as a duplex on Lot 42 of the Granada Tract by real estate developer Henry N. Cohen
  • Architect: Lester S. Moore
  • Henry N. Cohen developed more than one lot in the Granada Tract, the southwest corner of which was situated at the westerly turn of the Los Angeles Railway's "A" Line from Normandie Avenue onto West Adams. At some point in the 1900s, zoning along parts of West Adams between Normandie and Western avenues appears to have changed to allow for multi-family residential buildings and commercial development. An exception to Historic Los Angeles's restricting this inventory to Adams Boulevard buildings constructed as single-family dwellings, Cohen's 1737-39's apparent design deference to its easterly single-family neighbors is worth noting. Unlike his apparently blockier multi-unit building next door to the west, which he had Lester Moore design as well, 1737-39 is rendered as a typical large stucco gabled residence of the era and neighborhood; it contained a six-room apartment downstairs and a seven-room apartment upstairs per the building permit issued to Cohen by the Department of Buildings on March 20, 1911. Cohen had just completed the adjacent fourplex, addressed 1743-43½ and 1745-45½, for which he been issued a building permit on September 29, 1910
  • Henry Cohen died in Los Angeles on July 27, 1913, age 44; ownership of 1737-39 afterward is unclear until the late 1950s, by which time Ethel E. Holt, a longtime real estate broker and civic activist, had acquired the house. Mrs. Holt's husband, George Harrison "Pete" Holt, had died on November 17, 1958; curiously, "George Harrison" is listed as the owner owner on a permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety on November 12, 1959, for the 11-by-15-foot enclosure of a portion of the front porch, an addition which remains complete with neon clock in the window. The building by this time was both residential and commercial
  • On October 10, 1966, Dorothy Holt, a daughter of Ethel, was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add a carport to the property
  • Ethel Holt was still living at 1737-39 West Adams when she died at Cedars-Sinai on November 30, 1994, at the age of 91. Her obituary appeared in the Los Angeles Times on December 9, noting that her family had moved to Los Angeles from Boston in 1938 and that she was among the first black female real estate brokers, having entered the profession by the early '40s; A large obituary in the Los Angeles Sentinel on December 15 listed her many contributions to her community in addition to her business endeavors 



 Illustration: Private Collection