1815 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1909 on Lot 7 in Block 1 of the Adams Street Homestead Tract by real estate developer Richard D. Richards
  • Architect: Ye Planry Building Company, opened in 1905 by clever men who persuaded local contractors to contribute their designs to what became annual catalogs of stock architectural plans, an innovation perfectly timed to take advantage of the exponentially growing need for middle-class housing across Southern California. Ye Planry Bungalow Books have been credited with igniting what became a Craftsman craze throughout the huge developing swaths of Los Angeles's southern reaches and throughout the San Fernando Valley. Before long, the company opened its own building department; the quality of its generally modest projects soon became known among the affluent, who would find Ye Planry's larger houses to their liking and build many examples in the westward-expanding Adams and Wilshire corridors
  • On February 4, 1909, the Department of Buildings issued R. D. Richards a permit for a six-room bungalow at what was intially intended to be addressed 1813 West Adams Street
  • On June 14, 1909, an advertisement appeared in the Los Angeles Express offering a "special bargain" on a just-completed bungalow with stone porch, chimneys, and mantels
  • The first owner of 1815 West Adams was mine operator William McGee, who bought the house around the time of what appears to be his third marriage, at 55, to 28-year-old Miss Daisy Took on December 22, 1909. The newlyweds lived at 1815 until 1912
  • After a brief tenancy by Benjamin Simons, proprietor of a ladies'-wear shop on Broadway, during the 1913, 1815 West Adams was purchased by Arthur Hartmann, a restaurant chef moving from Santa Monica. Hartmann and his wife Emma, both German-born, moved into 1815 with their son Arthur Jr., a bookkeeper, and their daughter Leona. The Hartmanns stayed until mid 1920, when they returned to Santa Monica to live
  • After being occupied briefly by Bernard Kavanaugh, a physician, 1815 West Adams was purchased by Canadian-born painting contractor Horace H. Mann in 1923. Coming from a rented house at 2414 Juliet Street and having been widowed in April 1922, Mann moved into his new house with the elder of two sons, Horace A. Mann—who worked with his father—and his teenage daughters Jessie Mae and Dorothy. (Mann's second son George, an optometrist, lived nearby on West 23rd Street)
  • On October 24, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued H. H. Mann a permit to add a 12-by-15-foot room "and necessary walks" to be used as a private office. Three days later, the D.B.S. issued Mann a permit to add a separate new structure to the property; this was a 28-by-32-foot building to be used as "private storage for painting contractor's equipment"
  • Horace H. Mann died of acute peritonitis at Good Samaritan Hospital on May 25, 1929, age 70. His obituary in the Times three days later was headlined curiously RITES FOR EDUCATOR TOMORROW: Horace H. Mann's Death Robs City of Prominent Man in Painters' Circles," which at first glance recalls his unrelated namesake, the American lawyer and public-education reformer who died the same year that Horace H. Mann was born
  • After his death, Horace H. Mann's family appears to have sold his business assets, apparently including 1815 West Adams, to J. Pierre Carroll, who was forming his own company after being employed as an estimator for the Parker-Judge Company, painting contractors, for several years. (Mann's daughter Jessie Mae had married salesman Fred Carroll in 1928 and moved to Columbus, Ohio; Fred and Pierre Carroll do not seem to have been related, at least not closely)
  • On December 4, 1931, the Department of Building and Safety issued owner J. P. Carroll a permit for minor interior work at 1815 West Adams
  • Pierre Carroll appears to have rented 1815 West Adams out to commercial interests for the next several years; the blocks of West Adams Boulevard between Vermont and Western avenues had begun being commercialized by the 1920s as the Adams corridor began its decline as homeowners moved out of its aging housing stock and on to newer suburbs to the west and north, on into the San Fernando Valley. The 1933 city directory listed a restaurant in the house run by Johanna Handrick, who lived on Washington Boulevard; this operation was short-lived. Occupying the 1927 rear addition to the original house—which was now being classified as a duplex—from 1933 to 1936 was Christopher C. Cooper, who ran his Los Angeles Window Shade Factory in the separate rear building that had also been added to the property in 1927
  • Emilio Tosetti, whose occupation was listed in city directories and on federal census forms as a brass polisher, bought 1815 West Adams in 1936 and would remain in residence for over 30 years
  • The Department of Building and Safety issued Emilio Tosetti permits on July 27 and 28, August 18, and November 11, 1936, and on January 11, 1937, for the interior refurbishment of 1815 West Adams
  • Antonietta Tosetti, born in Italy as was her husband, was a masseuse who operated out of 1815 West Adams. After 32 years in the house, she died on August 1, 1968, at the age of 79. Emilio Tosetti soon moved north to Millbrae to be nearer his son, Charles, of San Francisco. Emilio died in Burlingame on August 29, 1977, age 88
  • By 1973, 1815 West Adams was owned by Mattie McAfee, who was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on August 7, 1973, to create a boarding house by converting three rooms to "guest rooms"
  • By 1996, 1815 West Adams had been acquired by Carmen Quintana, who on October 30 0f that year was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to replace the roof. Quintana still owns the property and has recently destroyed its original 1909 house, a prime example of a Ye Planry Building Company bungalow plan that had survived almost untouched for 111 years
  • On August 14, 2020, Carmen Quintana was issued permits for the demolition of 1815 West Adams, still referred to by the Department of Building and Safety as a duplex, and its rear structure. Construction on a four-story, full-lot apartment house was soon underway
  • Adams Boulevard has always been attractive to developers for apartment construction. Occasionally an apartment building on the avenue would replace an existing single-family dwelling that was relocated, though early development was usually on unimproved lots. An item in the Times on September 24, 1911, regarding the deep four-story building still standing at the northwest corner of Adams and Catalina (then Romeo Street) was headlined APARTMENTS INVADE ADAMS. 


Construction of the replacement of the 1909 bungalow at 1815 West Adams was well underway when
this image was taken on February 2, 2021. What had been designated Adams Street on maps
as early as 1857 had became a Boulevard in the 1920s to accommodate east-west
traffic before freeways. This contributed to the residential decline of
the avenue; by the late 20th century, enormous highway-
size billboards appeared along the avenue.



The illustrations below have been adapted from a 2019 real estate listing to provide a record of the now-lost 1815 West Adams Boulevard, 1909-2020:









Illustrations: Private Collection; MLS; Handsome Stranger