1814 West Adams Boulevard


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  • Built in 1905 as 1816 West Adams Street on Lot 2 in Block 5 of the Charles Victor Hall Tract by Tyler & Company as a speculative venture. Tyler & Company was a family real estate development firm in which investor Marcus S. Tyler was partnered with his sons Walter, Bernard, Frank M. Tyler, and, in time, his youngest son, Arthur. Frank Tyler became the firm's principal architect and one of Los Angeles's most prolific residential designers of the early 20th century
  • Architect: Frank M. Tyler. In his early 20s when he began designing, Tyler would go on to create numerous frame residences in Los Angeles during the first four decades of the 1900s, many of them significant and still standing. He practiced both in connection with Tyler & Company and independently. Another of his designs also remains standing just to the west of 1814 West Adams at 2601 Dalton Avenue
  • On May 1, 1905, the Superintendent of Buildings issued Tyler & Company a permit for a $2,000 one-story, six-room frame and shingle residence at 1816 West Adams
  • The first owner of 1816 West Adams was inventor and engineer Edward S. Cobb. Cobb received patents for various inventions including streetcar components; employed by the Pacific Electric Railway, he consulted on the design of the railway's Huntington Building (still standing at the southeast corner of Main and Sixth streets) and on the Los Angeles Aqueduct, then in its early stages of construction on its route south from the Owens Valley
  • On May 10, 1906, the Department of Buildings issued Edward S. Cobb a permit for the erection of a 10-by-24-foot shed at the rear of the property; on August 2, 1906, Cobb received a permit for the addition of a screen porch
  • In 1908, Edward Cobb sold 1816 West Adams to James C. McPherson, a Pacific Electric superintendent. He remained in the house until moving to Pasadena in 1911. Ownership of 1816 is unclear until 1922; the family of wholesale furniture dealer Andrew J. McKee succeeded James McPherson, staying until 1917, when the house was briefly occupied by machinist Frank Schwab. William Snyder, a traveling salesman for a grocer, was then in residence at 1816 West Adams until 1922 
  • Anthony J. Di Betta, proprietor of the Progressive Meat Market on Central Avenue, bought 1816 West Adams in 1922. He and his wife Anna, married in 1916, had two children before they were divorced several years after moving into the house. Anthony remarried in 1929, with Anna retaining ownership until 1931
  • Linotype operator Warren C. Clapp owned 1816 West Adams by 1932. He and his wife Flavia remained until 1941. The Clapps were succeeded by Henry and Ethel Reich; Reich was an accountant with the Department of Water & Power
  • In the spring of 1948, 1816 West Adams was being offered for sale in advertisements in the Los Angeles Sentinel by real estate dealer Charles R. Ransom for $15,750. The property does not appear to have sold at that price; by August 1949, the listing was in the hands of real estate man Travis T. Lott, who had moved his office into the house temporarily. Lott advertised 1816 as a "good business location...suitable for physician, dentist or varioius businesses." Described as being in excellent condition, the price was now $12,500. Yet another real estate dealer, Martha Jones, was in possession of the house by the spring of 1951
  • On June 7, 1951, the Department of Building and Safety issued owner Martha E. Jones a permit to convert 1816 West Adams from a single-family residence to a duplex—after which a second address, 1814 West Adams began to be used—and to enclose a porch with glass. Mrs. Jones and her husband, Clarence Jones, were operating out of the house by the fall, having joined established real estate broker Leon H. James; Martha Jones was operating on her own by the the spring of 1952. She was still living at 1816 at the time of her death on August 23, 1972. Mr. Jones appears to have remained in the house until his death on October 10, 1982. It seems that the Jones family retained ownership into the 2000s
  • On October 28, 1974, the Department of Building and Safety issued Independent Outdoor Advertising, Inc., a permit to erect a 6-by-12-foot sign rising 15 feet in the front yard of 1814 West Adams; it is unclear as to what this may have advertised. There is no such sign on the property today
  • On December 2, 1999, the Department of Building and Safety issued the "Est Of Constance Walls Decd," represented by a Sonia Delgado, a permit to replace the roof of 1814-1816 West Adams. Constance Walls appears to have been the former Constance Jones, Martha and Clarence Jones's middle of three daughters, who died on January 4, 1992
  • 1814-1816 West Adams sold for $164,000 on November 17, 2000. The new owner would create a distinctive landmark along the boulevard while preserving the house's 1905 charm


The first items of distinctive folk art began to appear on the façade and gables of 1814 West Adams
by the spring of 2011; the house was repainted in its current red scheme by the fall of 2012.



Illustrations: Private Collection