1101 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built circa 1895 on a parcel comprised of Lot 10 and part of Lot 9 of Deitz's Adams Street Tract
  • Deitz's Adams Street Tract was surveyed for Fannie V. Deitz on April 13, 1894, per a map in the collection of Los Angeles County's Department of Public Works. Their relationship unclear and for reasons unclear, Mrs. Deitz's affairs appear to have been in the care of Benona Wartelle, who was reported by the Times on May 12, 1894, to have sold Lots 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10 of the tract to real estate man Frank A. Bradshaw
  • Frank Bradshaw, in partnership with his brother William in Bradshaw Brothers, real estate and investments, sold a northerly portion of Lots 1, 2, and 3 to an A. F. West per the Herald of October 21, 1894. It may be that Bradshaw Brothers built 1101 West Adams as rental property in 1894 or '95, with the widow Lillian N. Gibbs occupying the house; Mrs. Gibbs was at any rate listed at 1101 West Adams in Los Angeles city directories from 1895 to 1899, despite the sale of the property in 1896 and then again in 1898
  • On June 11, 1896, both the Times and the Express reported that Frank Bradshaw had just sold southerly portions of Lots 1, 2, and 3 and all of Lots 8, 9, and 10 of Deitz's Adams Street Tract to banker William H. Holliday for $7,000. It appears that Holliday also acquired the westerly section of the Deitz tract (Lots 4, 5, 6, and 7, a parcel later identified separately as Tract 1063), upon which he built 1109 West Adams in 1896, spending $6,000, as reported in the Express on September 5. On January 14, 1897, the paper reported that Holliday and his family had moved into their new house
  • On February 18, 1898, the Express reported the sale by William Holliday of "a well-improved property, being lots 1,2, 9, and 10 of Deitz's Adams street tract" to Ione Virginia Hill Cowles, wife of physician and surgeon Josiah Evans Cowles, for $4,250. With a tenant in place at 1101 West Adams, the Cowleses remained living in their quarters at the doctor's Pacific Sanitarium at 1301 South Hope for the time being. The Pacific Sanitarium was founded by Dr. Cowles in 1891 and operated until the completion of its successor institution, the Pacific Hospital, which opened around the corner at 1319 South Grand in December 1899


Josiah and Ione Cowles occupied 1101 West Adams from 1900 until their deaths in 1933 and 1940,
respectively. Dr. Cowles was depicted with the image above in his Los Angeles Times obituary;
Mrs. Cowles is seen in 1916 as president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, a
national, and today, international, organization. Her image may have been captured
at 1101 West Adams, where the telephone number was, pre-dials, 242-17.


  • Presumably having been renting 1101 West Adams from William Holliday since 1896 and from Josiah Cowles since 1898, Lillian Gibbs and her five children left the house in 1899 for another rental at 2508 South Flower. Afterward behavior unseemly for genteel West Adams transpired at 1101 West Adams, with the Cowleses' rental agent apparently neglecting to ask for references for his next tenants or for any money up front
  • A strange crew of scam artists came to occupy 1101 West Adams late in the late summer of 1899; by December, the press had a field day describing the peculiar crimes of Lucy (Mrs. J. W.) Martin, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Gross—he was a butcher—and Fred Gross Jr. The crew had rented the house from the Cowleses' less-than-savvy broker, who allowed the Grosses and Mrs. Martin to take possession on a promise to pay the first month's rent a few days later. No payment was forthcoming. Complaints piled up as tradesmen reported nonpayment for many goods and services delivered to 1101, including a sewing machine, shirts from Lowman's, a cow and a calf, geese, groceries, and beer in kegs and soda by the case. Inaccurately describing the house as belonging to "San Francisco parties" and describing the group as desperados, the Times reported on December 21 that after weeks of trying to serve attachments, the police had stormed the house the previous afternoon to make arrests and seize loot; only Mrs. Gross was captured during the siege. On the 22nd, the Times described a second siege, this one taking place at a house on Belmont Avenue, which netted Mrs. Martin. Fred Gross senior and junior were arrested later; the fates of the two young daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Gross were left unmentioned
  • Once 1101 West Adams was cleared of its wayward tenants, the cow, the calf, and the dead soldiers, Josiah and Ione Cowles were able to move into the house. They would be staying for the rest of their lives. Dr. Cowles died at 1101 on June 15, 1933. His sizable obituary in the Times the next day described his accomplishments including his service as the local chief medical examiner for the Equitable Life Assurance Society of New York, on numerous civic and medical boards, and as senior warden of St. John's Episcopal Church for 40 years. After Mrs. Cowles expired in her sleep at 1101 on July 5, 1940, she received a prominent obituary of her own. A charter member of both the very exclusive Friday Morning Club and the only somewhat less selective Ebell of Los Angeles, the Times noted her leadership in women's clubs federations and her service as leader of distaff auxiliaries at St. John's
  • Curiously, a permit issued for exterior stucco repairs by the Department of Building and Safety on October 28, 1937, cites the California Trust Company, apparently in charge of Mrs. Cowles's affairs, as the owner of 1101 West Adams
  • By 1945, 1101 West Adams was owned by Hugo A. Enders, who had in recent years been manager of the Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, founded by architect Arthur Heineman. (Originally called the Milestone Mo-Tel, the now-shuttered Motel Inn is considered to have been the first motor hotel in the world)
  • On September 26, 1945, Mrs. Hugo Enders was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a new 14-by-18-foot garage behind 1101 West Adams. Apparently in preparation for the sale of 1101 West Adams, Hugo Enders was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety on October 6, 1949, for miscellaneous repairs to bring the house up to code
  • Dr. Albert Marine Weston, an osteopath, was in possession of 1101 West Adams by mid 1950. Dr. Weston's mother, Blanche Weston of Monrovia, was also an osteopath, as was his first wife, Edith Steinberger Weston 
  • On July 6, 1950, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit to Naomi Weston, Albert's second wife, to build three new kitchens at 1101 West Adams. As had been many if not most West Adams houses, 1101 was being converted into a multi-unit dwelling
  • Naomi Weston died on February 8, 1962. Dr. Weston appears to have left 1101 West Adams by 1964; he was living in Walnut Creek when he died on June 18, 1972
  • On December 13, 1966, a demolition permit for 1101 West Adams was issued by the Department of Building and Safety; interestingly, the owner is identified as the City of Los Angeles—perhaps property taxes had been left unpaid, or perhaps the permit was carelessly executed, erroneously describing as it does the house's site as being Lot 3 in Block 1 of the C. M. Wells Tract across Hoover Street, which corresponds to the then (and still) empty northwest corner of Adams and Toberman rather than the northwest corner of Adams and Hoover


A three-quarters view from the actual corner of Adams and Hoover reveals the twin half-round bays
facing east over the tracks of the Los Angeles Railway's U line. The Cowles house was modern
for its time and in the vein of the contemporaneous Wilcox residence across the street at
1100 West Adams. Members of the Wilcox family held on in the declining West
Adams neighborhood even longer than the Cowleses. Most early
residents fled for newer suburbs by the Depression.


Permits for a visual mishmash of a multi-use building on the northwest corner of Adams Boulevard
and Hoover Street that includes luxurious student housing were issued in 2015. Completed
in 2016, it replaced a shopping center that had been on the site for 30 years.



Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; LOC; LAH