1280 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1894 on a parcel comprised of Lots 3 and 4 in the Ellendale Place Tract by candy manufacturer and real estate investor Roland Porter Bishop
  • On July 27, 1893, the Los Angeles Times reported that Roland Bishop had just purchased, from separate sellers, Lots 3 and 4, which form the southeast corner of West Adams and Ellendale Place; the Express of the following November 9 reported Bishop's acquisition of the parcel, measuring 106 feet along Adams and 150 feet along Ellendale, and his intention to build "an attractive home there." The house was built with its façade angled toward the corner rather than being oriented squarely toward either street
  • The Roland Bishops seem to have appeared almost daily in society columns in local papers—sometimes twice in the same publication on the same day—as did his cousin William T. Bishop, with whom he was in business, who built at 1342 West Adams a block away at the southeast corner of Menlo Avenue in 1898. That same year, Mrs. W. T. Bishop's sister and her husband Godfrey Holterhoff, no less a pair of social dreadnoughts, built 1360 West Adams at the southwest corner of Adams and Menlo
  • In 1900, Bishop—who'd been widowed in 1891 and left with five-year-old Sara Huston Bishop—married Dorothy Wellborn, a daughter of U.S. District Court judge Olin Wellborn; Roland P. Bishop Jr. was born on August 9, 1905. Huston Bishop (as Roland's daughter by his first wife was known) was married at 1280 East Adams on October 28, 1908, 17 days after her 23rd birthday. Her groom was 27-year-old Edward C. Bosbyshell, a well-set-up salesman for the United Wholesale Grocery Company, owned by his father. On the day of the wedding, the Los Angeles Express, well-supplied with details ahead of the ceremony, reported that there were to be several hundred guests. Included in the report were the usual descriptions of the dresses of the bride and her attendants, among them as matron-of-honor her stepmother's sister Lillian Wellborn Green (who had married oilman and Beverly Hills developer Burton E. Green in 1903) and Irene Kelly (whose family had built 1140 West Adams and who would marry automobile and radio mogul Earle C. Anthony the following December 1, 1908, and with him soon build a Greene & Greene house at Wilshire and Berendo). The Express also reported that the groom was building 1238 West Adams, four doors to the east of 1280, for himself and his bride; the house was actually a wedding present from Huston's father, as indicated on the original building permit. (That house, originally a six-room, 1½-story building, still stands, though much altered)


Some owners of corner lots fronting Adams Street oriented their houses toward the center of the
intersection, as did Roland Bishop when he built 1280. Ellendale Place was originally a
a wider-than-usual street extending south to West 29th Street, one considered
exclusive when it opened. Its extension north of Adams came
later with the renaming of Thornton Avenue.


  • The Los Angeles Country Club, which had been founded not far to the north of the West Adams District in 1897, moved to its current Westside location in 1911, where it became increasingly inconvenient to the social Old Guard in what were then Los Angeles's bon-ton neighborhoods. While William and Harriett Bishop would remain at 1342 until 1927 before moving on to Bel-Air, and Louise Holterhoff wouldn't budge until 1947, the Adams/Ellendale neighborhood having sunk deep into disrepair and social obscurity, the Roland Bishops, the Burton Greens, and the Olin Wellborns would become early settlers of Beverly Hills
  • After his marriage to Dorothy Wellborn, it seems that Roland Bishop and Burton Green took control of their in-laws' domestic arrangements. Judge and Mrs. Wellborn and the Greens had been living together a few doors down Ellendale at 2633; Burton and Lillian would remain there, moving the Wellborns three doors north to the southwest corner of Adams in 1907 when the house there—1300 West Adams, across Ellendale Place from the Bishops' 1280—became available. Thirteen hundred had been built by the Reverend Washington W. Welsh in 1890 and occupied by him until his death in 1905; his widow Elizabeth remained until 1907, when the house was purchased by Roland Bishop. The thoroughly Dixie-bred Wellborns moved into 1300 after Bishop made additions to the house in the summer of 1907. Unlike the William T. Bishops of 1342 West Adams (next door to 1300 at the southeast corner of Adams and Menlo) and the Holterhoffs of 1360 West Adams, Roland and Dorothy Bishop, the Greens, and the Wellborns would decide to leave the West Adams district to become early residents of Beverly Hills. The Bishops' and the Greens' new houses would be ready in 1914, with the Wellborns following soon after; the latter's former house would then be moved kitty-corner across Adams, a permit for its relocation being issued to Roland Bishop by the Department of Buildings on June 1, 1916. At the northeast corner it become 1289 West Adams Street. Bishop sold 1300's original lot to Frank Page Bacon, on which he would build 2615 Ellendale Place, which still stands. (What was now 1289 West Adams would be acquired by George E. Bentel by 1920; that house would survive until 1971)


As advertised in the Los Angeles Times on January 14, 1920: "High-class oil paintings by renowned
masters," no less. It is unclear as to whether the furniture was the Bishops' or the Golds', but
 the Victorian and Edwardian clutter at 1280 West Adams would make way for the '20s.


  • Real estate operator Jacob Gold paid Roland Bishop $35,000 for 1280 West Adams in April 1914. On May 12 of that year, Gold was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to add a 15-by-20-foot room to the rear of the house. Gold and his family occupied 1280 West Adams for only two years; though actual ownership afterward is unclear, it may have been that Gold then rented the house out, lavishly furnished, until its contents were auctioned off on January 15, 1920. Classified advertisements indicate that at some point between Gold's occupancy and the auction, "high class room and board" was being offered at 1280. Less glamorous (or more modern) accommodations were apparently being offered at 1280 after the auction, with Eugenia Hobbs running a boarding establishment on the premises until 1923
  • As did many a commodious and aging West Adams–district residence, 1280 West Adams became a U.S.C. fraternity house. By the fall of 1924, 1280 was the chapter house of Gamma Epsilon. U.S.C. Greek-system dwellings of the era were casually lived-in and minimally maintained, especially during the Depression, with fires not uncommon. A blaze broke out on the second floor of 1280 on the night of January 4, 1933, doing considerable damage. On January 12, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit for repairs, including a new roof, to a William Brownstein, apparently the current lessor of the property. The dental fraternity Psi Omega succeeded Gamma Epsilon at 1280 West Adams in 1935 and stayed until 1939
  • Ownership of 1280 West Adams until 1959 is unclear; Ernest L. Robertson, a gardener, and his family were renting 1280 West Adams by April 1940. Daniel and Viola Thomas were in residence from the mid 1940s until at least 1958 and may have been owners
  • 1280 West Adams Boulevard was demolished in 1959 once a permit was issued by the Department of Building and Safety on November 19 to developer Daniel J. Lund. Five days later, Lund was issued a permit for a two-story, 22-unit apartment building on the site of the house. This structure remains at the southeast corner of Adams Boulevard and Ellendale Place today



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