1528 West Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1900 on Lot 3 of the Montgomery Tract by attorney Eber Tonkin Dunning, acting as trustee for his minor daughter Jessie E. Dunning
  • On September 28, 1900, the Los Angeles Herald reported that a building permit had recently been issued for the construction of 1528 West Adams Street; the construction budget was noted as $3,500
  • Eber Dunning's parents, William H. and Jessie Mary Dunning, had come to Los Angeles in the early 1880s having prospered in farming in Wisconsin and Illinois. The Dunnings invested in city property, which Mrs. Dunning continued to do with her son Eber after her husband's death in 1891. Among the Dunnings' holdings were Lots 1, 2, and 3 of the Montgomery Tract, which they acquired by 1897. Jessie Dunning, noted in her Herald obituary as being "actively identified with the cause of equal suffrage and Christian science," died on December 14 of that year, leaving much of her estate to Eber's five-year-old daughter Jessie Elizabeth Dunning
  • Eber Dunning had married Tacy Gleim, a graduate of Swarthmore, in 1890, with his mother's namesake arriving two years later. Dunning seemed to prosper apart from his family real estate investments, at least in terms of respect from the Los Angeles business establishment, which included his appointment as attorney for the Board of Trade. In 1898, however, he declared bankruptcy, around which there were lawsuits initiated by creditors over the property he now held in trust for his daughter. Once the dust settled, the Dunnings, rising quickly from insolvency in that mysterious way of bankrupts, began planning 1528 West Adams. Moving from an exurban area in what is today the Palms district, they were in residence in the new house by early 1901
  • The Dunnings were still living at 1528 West Adams on May 24, 1907, when Eber's body was found at the end of the Southern Pacific's Long Wharf in Santa Monica Bay, suspended in the water by a rope tied around his ankle. He had disappeared a few days before. He had been thrown from a buggy while rushing to the Arcade Station in May 1902 and badly injured; he was also, apparently, involved in a railroad accident in 1905 and had been unwell since then, spending some time in a rest home. The coroner's verdict was "suicide by drowning while temporarily insane"
  • Tacy and Jessie Dunning remained at 1528 West Adams until 1909. On May 14, 1909, Mrs. Dunning had been issued a permit by the Department of Buildings for a 10-by-14-foot addition ot the house; the builder was Frederick R. Black, a contractor who built and renovated many houses along the West Adams corridor
  • It appears that Tacy Dunning moved into a hotel in 1909, having decided to turn 1528 West Adams into rental property. The house was let briefly to James W. Taggart, who was in the process of having a residence built for his family at 225 Andrews Boulevard (today, Lafayette Park Place). Taggart was an attorney who became an Associate Justice of the District Court of Appeals for the Second District of California in 1906; he had been living in his new house on Andrews Boulevard for a matter of weeks when he died there on July 14, 1910
  • Tacy and Jessie Dunning were living in Burbank by the late 1910s; it is unclear as to whether they retained ownership of 1528 West Adams during that decade, when it was occupied by two families before the house was sold in 1918
  • From 1910 to 1914, The family of Dario Orena was renting 1528 West Adams. Mr. Orena's mother was Dona Maria Antonia Orena, of whom much was made in the press in the social notes regarding the Orenas' tenure at 1528. On December 6, 1910, the Orenas' second of five daughters, Anita, was married to Thomas Dibblee of Santa Barbara at St. Agnes, just up the street, with a wedding breakfast afterward at 1528. Speaking to a Herald reporter in May 1914, Anita, apparently not given to discretion and unaware of giving the impression of being a society vapor, lamented that Santa Barbara had become boring ("we have tangoed and bridged and dined") while boasting of her family's vast landholdings near Los Alamos (23,000 acres); she told of her eight-week-old daughter's descent from "both the first and last Spanish governors of California—De la Geurrra and Pio Pico" (her claim to descent from the first was specious). Mrs. Dibblee also couldn't resist the opportunity to injudiciously remind the peasants that Little Anita would inherit "many jewels left by the old Californians."
  • In October 1914, classified advertisements appeared in the Herald offering a "large modern house" for rent at 1528 West Adams. The ad described five bedrooms, three fireplaces, solar-heated hot water, a tennis court, and, curiously, a gymnasium, all for $75 a month
  • Occupying 1528 West Adams from 1914 until 1916 was Wade Harris Kimball, who, after arriving in Los Angeles in 1912, had gone to work for the local Moreland Motor Truck manufacturing company before stating his own Kimball Motor Truck Company
  • in 1917, 1528 West Adams was purchased by retirees Benjamin Stone and his wife Ida
  • On February 11, 1919, the Department of Buildings issued B. F. Stone a permit to build a 20-by-20-foot garage at 1528 West Adams. The document indicates that the house's parcel remained comprised of Lots 1, 2, and 3 of the Montgomery Tract. The permit also, curiously, indicates that another building on the property was used for "school purposes"
  • On June 10, 1919, the Department of Buildings issued Ida Stone a permit for an interior remodeling of 1528 West Adams; this appears to have been done to convert the building into a rooming house
  • On March 7, 1922, the Department of Buildings issued Ida Stone a permit for another garage at 1528, this one measuring 10 by 14 feet
  • Benjamin and Ida Stone were enumerated at 1528 West Adams in the 1930 federal census along with four lodgers. The Stones left 1528 by the next year, moving to the Wilshire District
  • While ownership of 1528 West Adams until the war years is unclear, the house remained a rooming operation. In the 1934 city directory, the Reverend Elizabeth Pompey, pastor of the Temple of the Holy Cross, was listed at 1528, as was the church itself. By the next year, Alice E. Carson, a divorcée, was renting the house; she would remain until 1943 and was enumerated at 1528 in the 1940 federal census with her 27-year-old son Robert Byron Carson and 14 lodgers
  • 1528 West Adams was acquired by investor Marvin Asa Holmes in 1943. Holmes was a developer of the Golden Queen mine in Kern County, near Mojave, and owned and operated the Arizona Lead Company in Yuma. It is unclear as to why an old frame house on Adams Boulevard, both well into decline, would have seemed an attractive investment opportunity, but Holmes nevertheless made improvements to 1528
  • On September 17, 1943, the Department of Building and Safety issued Marvin A. Holmes a permit to replace the roof of 1528 West Adams
  • Marvin Holmes died on August 31, 1945, at the age of 69. His obituary in the Times three days later noted his prominence in the mining industry but not that he might have been in declining health; it could be that he had purchased 1528 West Adams as a future home for his wife, who, interestingly, would indeed move from her longtime Wilshire district house to 1528 soon after becoming a widow. Given that one might have thought the Holmeses prosperous enough to live in a better neighborhood, it seems remarkable that Mrs. Holmes chose to remain in possession of, if not living at, 1528 until her death on May 13, 1959
  • Calina Holmes's sons George and Kenneth and their wives, while living mostly in Yuma where they looked after family properties, maintained their voting addresses at 1528 West Adams during Mrs. Holmes's tenure; other apparently unrelated individuals were also listed on voter rolls at 1528 during that time. City directory listings during the 1960s describe the house as an apartment building. Among its interesting tenants was the Bishop Richard R. Wright Jr. of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, in residence briefly during 1960. He was in Los Angeles to promote a concert "Tracing Negro Music from Its Slavery Antecedents to Present," including the work of William Grant Still, per a large display advertisement in the Los Angeles Sentinel on April 21, 1960
  • On April 10 and May 9, 1963, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits to a new owner of 1528 West Adams, a Dr. Kyle, for minor exterior and interior upgrades
  • On February 7, 1986, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit to absentee owner Robert W. Lee for the addition of a bathroom at 1528 West Adams



Illustration: Private Collection