1841 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1905 as a speculative single-family residence by builder Walter E. Tyler on Lot 12 of the Adams Street Homestead Tract; Tyler was president of Tyler & Company, a real estate development firm in which he was partnered with his brothers Frank M. Tyler, and Bernard L. Tyler. Walter Tyler was at the same time building his own home farther west at 2501 Adams Street, as the thoroughfare was then designated
  • Architect: Frank M. Tyler; he was responsible for numerous frame residences, many of them significant, as well as commercial structures in Los Angeles during the first four decades of the 1900s, both in connection with Tyler & Company and independently
  • The Times reported on July 19, 1905, that Walter E. Tyler had just sold 1841 West Adams to merchant tailor Otto C. Sens and his wife Margaret
  • On September 3, 1905, the Herald described Mr. Sens, whose establishment was downtown at 219 West Second Street, as "an expert and artistic cutter and fitter, [who] serves a class of men who demand the best, and for this reason he employs from eighteen to twenty of only the most expert workmen"


Employing an attention-getting device or two, Otto Sens advertised his business in the Herald on
March 4, 1906. It seems that the misspelling of "Dressy" was intentional, meant to catch
the eye; correctly identifying the rebus at left "in the neatest and most attractive
manner" as an allusion to the discoverer of America got you a new vest.
  • By April 1910 the Senses had sold 1841 West Adams to Martin Barber, the superintendent of development of oil properties belonging to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway
  • Barber also acquired the adjacent Lot 13; on November 10, 1910, the Department of Buildings issued him a permit to build a garage at the rear of this lot to serve 1841 West Adams. Builder George Disch was in charge of the project
  • Barber's wife, Lydia, died at the Santa Fe's local hospital on January 29, 1911; the funeral was held at 1841 West Adams four days later
  • Barber married Nellie Bonfils Lockhard in March 1913; both 1841 West Adams and her residence at 2131 West 28th Street were retained, the former apparently rented out during the 1910s. (A divorcée with four children, Nellie Lockhard was the sister of the owner of The Denver Post. She had been married to David Lockhard, who walked out of the 28th Street house one morning in June 1910 and never returned. The family strenuously denied that he was having an affair; he married a Miss Jessie Fremont Douglass in November 1914)
  • On April 29, 1913, Barber was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to add a rear porch with a pergola roof to 1841; George Disch was the contractor
  • Having decided to develop Lot 13, Barber was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings on May 13, 1915, for the erection of the four-family 1843, 1845, 1847, and 1849 West Adams, a building with a large columned pediment that still stands alongside 1841; Thomas J. Buskey was the builder
  • By January 1920, the Barbers, three of her four children, and a grandchild were living at 2131 West 28th Street; 1841 West Adams had been sold to retired Canadian merchant William Wesley Hanes
  • W. W. Hanes had arrived in Los Angeles with his wife Agnes around the time of their daughter Lillian Davis's death in June 1916; the Haneses moved in with their widowed son-in-law and granddaughter, another Lillian, and were soon joined in the city by their son William Adam Hanes and his family. After moving into 1841 West Adams, the family would be adapting the house to shelter three generations more comfortably
  • On May 17, 1921, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to William W. Hanes "to make over the structure to accommodate two families...with separate stairways." Builder Rolland H. Holbrook was in charge of the project. The single entrance became two, with the easterly half of the house now to be addressed 1839 West Adams
  • William A. Hanes and was a salesman at James P. Burns, a prominent downtown shoe store; he and his wife Carrie and son Ford would be occupying the westerly side of the house, which retained the 1841 address. His parents moved into 1839. W. A. Hanes died in Los Angeles on November 3, 1923. After her husband's death, Carrie Hanes moved around the corner and a bit north to a cottage she built at 2130 South La Salle Avenue in 1925. (It was demolished 35 years later for the Santa Monica Freeway)
  • W. W. Hanes was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings on February 5, 1924, to build a 10-by-12-foot outbuilding referred to on the document as a "sleeping room," perhaps at Agnes's urging due to his snoring
  • W. W. Hanes died in Los Angeles on January 8, 1925   
  • The 1841 side of the house was rented out to various tenants until the Haneses' granddaughter Lillian and her husband Thomas Zachariah Graham—a downtown parking-lot owner she'd married in 1923—moved in, coming from a new house they owned at Highland and First Street in what was by 1931 a much nicer neighborhood than the Haneses' commercializing stretch of fading West Adams Boulevard, as the street was now called. Agnes Hanes remained at 1839 West Adams until her death on March 25, 1935. She left the house to Lillian
  • On February 3, 1937, the Department of Building and Safety issued Thomas Graham a permit to add a sleeping porch over the porch added by Martin Barber in 1913. On March 4, 1940, Graham was issued permit to make several alterations including the replacement of a double window with a bay on the east side of the house. Lillian Graham was issued a permit on April 29, 1943, to replace the roof
  • In 1948, the Grahams sold 1839-1841 West Adams and moved to a recently-completed house at 2900 South Bentley Avenue in West Los Angeles. Thomas Graham died in the city on May 24, 1950
  • The Sens-Barber-Hanes-Graham house was acquired by Martin Giragosian in 1948. On August 19, 1949, he was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add a bedroom and bath to the rear of the 1839 side of the house
  • The 114-year-old 1839-1841 West Adams Boulevard remains standing today, perhaps better neglected than gone altogether
As seen in early 2019, the house Frank M. Tyler designed in 1905 stands to the right, now featuring
modern lawn ornaments. Railroad property manager Martin Barber occupied it during the
1910s; in 1915 he built the four-family building that still stands to its left.



Illustration: Private Collection; CDNC