242 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1901 on Lot 19 in Block A of Shafer & Lanterman's Subdivision of the Montague Tract
  • On October 9, 1901, the Los Angeles Express reported that a permit had been issued by the Superintendent of Buildings to a Mrs. J. Baker for a two-story, ten-room residence at 242 East Adams budgeted at $2,500. The house was apparently rented out, advertisements for its lease appearing during 1902. Advertisements offering it for sale began to appear in the summer of 1903, these noting that the owner, presumably still the otherwise unidentified "Mrs. J. Baker," lived out of town. It was stated that the house would be available after August 1, but ads continued into September
  • Furniture dealer Joseph M. Overell became the owner of 242 East Adams in 1904; he moved in with his wife Anna, their six sons, Arthur, Walter, Ira, Oscar, Robert, and Lawrence, and Joseph's sister Clara Overell
  • Indiana native J. M. Overell came west with the 20th century, arriving in Los Angeles from Evansville in 1898 after a successful career as a building contractor, architect, and planing-mill owner. With an affinity for wood, he opened a Spring Street furniture emporium in partnership with George L. Louden and, a few years later, a store of his own, the instantly booming J. M. Overell Furniture Company. Joe worked hard pushing davenports, breakfronts, and canterburies out the doors of his showroom on Main Street; he also worked hard at making sure that those buying from him on the installment plan didn't enjoy their parlor suites without paying up, sending his sons Arthur and Ira out to forcibly retrieve goods not paid for. In 1906, thugs Arthur and Ira were convicted in court of assaulting an elderly man whose son was in arrears. (Though they became fairly rich and had social aspirations, the Overells were perhaps never what you would call genteel, their being in trade the least of it)
  • On November 6, 1907, the Department of Buildings issued Anne E. Overell a permit to add a chimney with fireplace to the house; the only chimney in the house today is one at the northwest corner of the building, the top of which, curiously, appears to have been broken off down to the roofline (as if after an earthquake) for at least a decade, On October 6, 1908, Mrs. Overell was issued a permit to add a 1-story, 10-foot-6-inch-square rear addition
  • Although the Overells would retain 242 East Adams as rental property until 1920, it was, after eight years there themselves, time for a statement house in the manner of all prospering burghers. While the bungalowesque style of 331 South Mariposa Avenue was one replicated by many local architects to the point of quickly becoming a Los Angeles trademark and then just as quickly being seen all too often, the Overells' new house, though hardly distinctive by the time it was built in 1911, may have actually been Mr. Overell's own interpretation of the genre, given his prior architectural experience; he may very well have at least acted as his own contractor. In any case, Overell made the decision to move not directly west along the still-fashionable Adams corridor but to the northwest. While ultimately his new neighborhood proved to have no more longevity in terms of exclusivity than West Adams—being not quite as far west in the burgeoning Wilshire District as those neighborhoods that would hold their cachet into the 21st century, such as Windsor Square—at the time, despite the barrenness of early development, tracts in the precincts of Mariposa Avenue signified arrival. Designated 431 before the city's annexation-related renumberings of 1912-13 altered it to 331, Overell's new gabled house—termed "Elizabethan" by the Los Angeles Times—was big and airy and had plenty of room for Joe and Anna and the four of their six sons still living at home, and Clara. Sadly, Joe didn't get to enjoy his hard-earned house for very long, expiring as he did in Long Beach at age 59 on December 13, 1912. His widow assumed the presidency of what was very much a family firm—all of the Overells' six sons would eventually work for the company, if not always so amicably. (Strife at the office would turn out to be only a small part of the family's troubles; Joe and Anna's granddaughter Beulah Louise Overell would be tried for murdering her parents by blowing up their yacht in a wonderfully noir and much-publicized 1947 case.) Although she would be dead a year after leaving Mariposa Avenue in late 1921, Anna Overell was one of several widows of prominent Los Angeles merchants who took over the corporate reins when their husbands died: Mary Brent tried her hand at the helm of Brent's Great Credit House, another Main Street furniture store, and Alice Coulter became president of the swanky department store bearing her name
  • After the Overells moved to Mariposa Avenue, 242 East Adams was rented to various parties until 1920, when the house was sold. Occupying the house from 1911 to 1914 was the Reverend Clarence E. Cornell, pastor of the First Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene. Multiple parties lived at 242 after the Reverend's departure and until 1920, during which time it was advertised as a boarding house
  • 242 East Adams appears to have been empty when the Overell family put it on the market early in 1920, placing advertisements in the Herald and in other papers claiming that although they considered the house to be worth $11,000, they would accept $9,500 cash. It was probably a pricing strategy that had worked well in the furniture trade
  • Longtime Los Angeles real estate man Clarence B. Knickerbocker became the owner of 242 East Adams after the Overells. Baton Rouge–born Knickerbocker moved into the house with his wife Annie and their five children. The Knickerbockers had been married in 1901, first living at the home of her recently widowed aunt, Mrs. George West Hughes, at 507 West Adams. (Moving west for his health, railroad man George West Hughes had been born in Arkansas, as had been his niece)
  • On June 13, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued C. B. Knickerbocker a permit to add an 18-by-24-foot garage to the property
  • On March 12, 1936, Clarence Knickerbocker, just turning 59, and a helper, James Kerwin, 36, were attempting to repair plumbing in a bathroom at 242 East Adams when a jug of gasoline was spilled near an operating blowtorch, burning the men "dangerously," as the Times described it the next day. The two jumped from the window and managed to beat out their burning clothing, but Kerwin died on the 13th at County General
  • The 1940 federal census enumerated on April 2 lists Clarence, Annie, and Mary Knickerbocker living at 242 East Adams; they were renting rooms in the house to two married couples and a single woman
  • Still living at 242 East Adams, Clarence B. Knickerbocker died on November 16, 1941, age 63; Annie Knickerbocker remained at 242 until her death on January 28, 1944, age 64
  • Succeeding the Knickerbockers at 242 East Adams was Nathan H. Wells, who would be listed on voter rolls and in city directories beginning with the 1944 issue and appear to have owned the house, renting rooms over the years to various individuals, including, it seems, one of the most prominent West Coast bandleaders of the era
  • On October 2, 1947, the Los Angeles Sentinel reported that jazz composer, bandleader, singer, and instrumentalist Clifton "Cee Pee" Johnson, giving his address as 242 East Adams, "was free...after his arrest on suspicion of a narcotic act violation." Johnson denied the charge and gained his release after paying a $2,000 fine; he was scheduled to open with his band at the Royal Hawaiian in Honolulu on October 18. According to the Sentinel, Johnson had served time after two previous narcotics convictions and appeared as a bandleader or drummer (if usually uncredited) in a number of major Hollywood films, including Birth of the Blues, Citizen Kane, and Hellzapoppin' (all released in 1941), To Have and Have Not (1944), and The Jolson Story (heard but not seen), and The Razor's Edge (both 1946). Johnson does not seem to have made any film appearances after his 1947 arrest but remained active into the early '50s
  • The Wells family was in residence at 242 East Adams until at least 1969. Later owners included José and Lidia Escobedo
  • On March 15, 1988, the Department of Building and Safety issued José and Lidia Escobedo a permit to install smoke detectors; on September 14, 1989, the Escobedos were issued a permit for work to "comply with order dated September 20, 1988—restore to original approved use—SFD [single-family dwelling]." On January 22, 1991, the Escobedos were issued a permit to demolish the 1927 garage
  • It is unclear as to when 242 East Adams received its new windows or its application of stucco—the latter an all-too-common alteration of vintage Los Angeles houses, aesthetically less than ideal, though one that has extended the useful life



Illustration: Private Collection