430 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built 1901 on Lot 8 in Block 8 of Daman & Millard's subdivision of the Shaw Tract
  • There had been considerable speculation in property south of the center of Los Angeles during Southern California's brief railroad-fueled Boom of the 1880s, with much platting and promotion of new tracts carved out of old agricultural homesteads. Once the inevitable bust came by the end of the decade, there was a lull in activity that was extended by the national Panic of 1893. Once full recovery came by 1897, the promotion of what came to be called the South Los Angeles district—to which name the larger region reverted after being known for decades as South Central Los Angeles—resumed. The frenzy of cottage building along East Adams Street (as the Boulevard was then designated) continued well into the next decade. Among the investors in the neighborhood was one of the city's major movers-and-shakers, no less than attorney Henry W. O'Melveny, a capitalist who for his own domestic arrangements preferred less-dense districts such as that of his eventual home at 3250 Wilshire Boulevard, which stands today in Windsor Square. Among other properties, O'Melveny acquired Lot 8 in Block 8 of Daman & Millard's subdivision of the Shaw Tract, on which by 1901 he was ready to realize a gain
  • In a rapid and somewhat confusing series of transactions, a house came to occupy Lot 8. Per the Los Angeles Herald on May 21, 1901, Henry O'Melveny and his wife Marie Antoinette [sic] O'Melveny had the day before transferred Lot 8 to another investor, Lewis M. Winters, whose day job was with Despars & Son, grocers and hardwaremen. Reported in the same real-estate news roundup in the Herald on May 21 was Lewis and Mary Winters's transfer of the lot's deed to real estate operator Robert M. Poindexter, who lived nearby on West Adams Street and who was at the time just developing Moorpark in Ventura County. A third item in the same Herald reportage had the Winterses taking out a mortgage on Lot 8 from yet another real estate operator, Alonzo R. Kendall, who lived up the street at 247 East Adams. It appears to be with this loan that the Winterses proceeded to build 430, apparently in cooperation with Robert Poindexter. The Winterses are listed at 430 in the 1902 city directory, although the house was being advertised for sale as early as February of that year. Their mortgage with Alonzo Kendall satisfied in June, they moved on to a new house
  • Actual ownership of 430 East Adams after the departure of the Winterses is unclear, although it may be that it was Robert Poindexter who retained it as a rental property, at least for a time. From its beginnings, the neighborhood was dotted liberally with houses not occupied by their owners, giving it something of a transient nature over the decades
  • Many families would be renting 430 East Adams over the years, starting with Mr. and Mrs. George W. Wilson; he was a furnace serviceman. During their stay from 1903 to 1906, the Wilsons' 17-year-old daughter Mamie created quite a few column inches in the Los Angeles Times on March 20, 1906, when she eloped with 32-year-old lumber salesman John E. Baker after her parents disapproved of the alliance; the Wilsons were under the impression that she was engaged to another man. The Times reported that the couple had been married in Orange County three days before, Mamie having lied about her age, which George Wilson discovered when he went to Santa Ana to ferret out the license. The deed done, the Wilsons decided to raise no further objections
  • Nearly yearly changes of tenants occurred at 430 East Adams after the departure of the Wilsons, with occasional tenancies of three or even five years. From 1930 to 1935 Mexican-born Manuela Elenes, a widow, her son Frank, and her daughter Jacqueline Olivas and her family were in residence; carpenter José Lujan and his wife Maria and their three children arrived afterward for a six-year stay, leaving after José's death on August 7, 1940
  • After a continued succession of renters, Jorge Gonzales, living next door at 424 East Adams, acquired 430
  • On November 16, 1972, the Department of Building and Safety issued Jorge Gonzales a permit to add what appears to be, as drawn on the document, a separate 20-by-26-foot "family room," with bath, connected to the house by a narrow hallway. Its footprint would be covered by new construction 14 years later
  • Public records indicate that Fermin Q. Rodriguez acquired 430 East Adams by 1982; on January 26, 1987, he was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add a two-story, three-unit dwelling to the rear of the lot. On the following November 25, an amended permit was issued, scaling back the three-unit project to become a two-story duplex, for which a certificate of occupancy was issued on April 20, 1988. The Rodriguez family appears to still own the house as of 2020



Illustration: Private Collection