1516 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1898 as 1428 West Adams Street on Lot 31 of the Plymouth Tract and in 1910 relocated to Lot 4 of the Montgomery Tract to become 1516 West Adams
  • Otis Edwin Fowble, a brick contractor, real estate investor, and inventor, built 1428 West Adams along with the adjacent 1424—two-story, ten-room residences of differing designs budgeted at $3,900 each—after being issued permits for them in August 1898. Fowble and his family would occupy 1428 themselves for a year
  • On December 7, 1898, the Los Angeles Herald reported that O. E. Fowble had given Flora B. Rosson, a widow investing in real estate, a $3,000 mortgage on the purchase of 1428 West Adams; Mrs. Rosson then rented the house to Coles Allen Bashford, who was enumerated at 1428 in the 1900 federal census with his occupation listed as "capitalist." The Herald of April 20, 1900, reported that "Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Bashford and family have removed to 1428 West Adams street. Mrs. Bashford will be at home the first and third Wednesdays."
  • In August 1903, the Diocese of Monterey–Los Angeles announced the formation of three new parishes in the former city, one of which was St. Agnes, which began purchasing property along Adams Street west of Vermont Avenue. The Times of August 16 reported that the diocese had bought four lots at the northwest corner of Adams and Budlong Avenue; on September 3, the Herald reported that this parcel had been exchanged for one at the southwest corner of Adams and Vermont, where, pending more permanent arrangements, a temporary church was already being built, with the first services expected to be held there on October 4. The Herald noted that "This chapel is the forerunner of a splendid church structure which will be erected within a reasonable time." In addition to three empty lots at the southwest corner of Vermont, both 1424 and 1428 West Adams would be purchased in the name of St. Agnes's rector, Clement Molony, who would occupy 1424. In December 1905, St. Agnes broke ground for an imposing Gothic Revival sanctuary, designed by the Boston firm Maginnis, Walsh & Sullivan and distinguished by twin 150-foot steeples facing Adams, dedicating it on Thankgiving Day two years later (this neighborhood landmark would be demolished and replaced with a service station in 1961). St. Agnes completed a parish house at 1404 West Adams within a few years, which remains standing—and began planning the St. Agnes Parish School on a parcel comprised of the sites of 1428 and 1432 West Adams (built circa 1900 on Lot 32 of the Plymouth Tract) and the additional westward Lot 33. The school would not actually open until the fall of 1914 in a building designed by Albert C. Martin. The Diocese of Monterey–Los Angeles would in the meantime be selling 1428 and 1432 West Adams—the structures themselves, that is, which would be relocated, 1432 eight blocks south to Tallman Street (both house and street later vanishing for the University Gardens housing project completed in 1971), 1428 to the southeast corner of Adams and Juliet streets to become 1516; 1424 remained standing until the school was expanded in 1925


The houses built by O. E. Fowble in 1898 at 1424 and 1428 West Adams Street, as the Boulevard was
then designated, as they appeared on their original lots. It is unclear as to when the front porch of
our subject here—1428, which stands today as 1516 West Adams Boulevard—gained its half-
octagonal easterly addition. Seen in this illustration based on a 1907 Sanborn insurance
map is St. Agnes Catholic Church, dedicated on November 28 of that year, and
the church's temporary sanctuary soon to be replace by a still-standing
parish house. 1424 was demolished when the St. Agnes School,
built on the site of 1428 in 1914, was expanded in 1925.
The school was demolished in 1960, the church
for a gas station in 1961, their sites now
covered by expanses of asphalt.


  • On January 1, 1910, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to hardware merchant and investor Jared H. Hixson for the removal of the house at 1428 West Adams to his property at the southeast corner of Adams and 1516 West Adams, Hixson having acquired the structure from the Diocese of Monterey–Los Angeles. Hixon had built 2610 Juliet Street at the rear of Lot 4 of the Montgomery Tract in 1909; he would move from that house into 1516 once it was settled up front. Both houses still stand
  • The relocation permit of January 1, 1910, included the notation that as originally built the exterior of the first floor of what became 1516 West Adams was plastered rather than sided with wood. The permit called for the replacement of the plaster with weatherboards before the house was moved west to its new foundation
  • Jared Hixson was listed as living at 1516 West Adams Street in the 1911 city directory; the next year he was living in Arcadia. It may be that he continued to maintain the property to provide income, if he didn't sell it to someone who did. The house appears to have been rented until at least 1924
  • Among those renting 1516 West Adams between 1916 and 1924 were Lizzie Doyle, a widow, and the family of Augustine de Bustamente, a retired merchant, landowner, and cattleman from Sonora, Mexico. Not long after moving into the house, he died at the age of 84 on December 5, 1916. His widow Louisa and daughter Louisa Azcona remained at 1516 until the early 1920s
  • Luverne Ed Winquist Dobbins, once a barkeep at Oakland's well-known Key Route Inn, had moved south from the Bay Area by 1921 to get into Los Angeles real estate. In 1921 he relocated a house from Cambria Street in Westlake to the southwest corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Beverly Boulevard in which he and his family lived for two years before purchasing 1516 West Adams. Dobbins is sometimes referred to in records as Verne or Ed or Lew
  • On October 16, 1924, owner L. E. W. Dobbins was issued a permit to build a new 16-by-17-foot brick garage at 1516 West Adams. Its Model-T length would later be extended to the sidewalk. Th 1924 permit indicates that at that time Lot 4 of the Montgomery Tract held the main house and one other smaller dwelling
  • On April 10, 1925, L. E. W. Dobbins was issued a permit to roof over an existing 12-by-13-foot open porch to create a sun room; this may refer to the easterly half-octagonal end of the front porch apparently added after the house's relocation
  • By 1930, Luverne Dobbins left 1516 West Adams. During the '20s the house had been occupied by various renters who would also host as many as seven lodgers at a time; this arrangement continued after its purchase by Susan E. Marshall in 1937
  • On April 19, 1937, the Department of Building and Safety issued Susan E. Marshall a permit for a 5-by-11-foot extension on the west aside of the first floor to contain a bathroom; this one-story addition was built out to the Juliet Street sidewalk and remains standing
  • By April 1940, Susan Marshall was living at 1516 West Adams with her daughter and son-in-law Lorraine and Urban R. Dorsey and their son Robert and seven additional lodgers. The Dorseys would divorce by 1951; Susan Marshall was last listed at 1516 West Adams in the 1960 city directory
  • On September 3, 1961,  the Los Angeles Times reported on a disturbance at a Western Avenue supermarket when police confronted a group of men blocking the store entrance trying to sell an issue of Muhammed Speaks, a paper produced in New York, carrying the headline "Muslims Set for Christian Attack." One of those arrested was Raymond Phillips of 1516 West Adams
  • 1516 West Adams appears to have been only sparsely populated from the 1960s to the early 2000s
  • On August 22, 2013, the Department of Building and Safety issued owner Shawn Kyles of Westlake Village permits for new roofs for both 1516 West Adams 2610 Juliet Street



Illustrations: Private Collection; LOC