FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO WINDSOR SQUARE, CLICK HERE

South Windsor Boulevard
600 block




601 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 65
  • Built in 1913; BPs for house and garage issued 6-16-1913
  • Original commissioner: Milton E. Getz, banker and president of the Sun Drug Company chain of drugstores; Mrs. Getz was a daughter of eminent Angeleno Kaspare Cohn, who only 13 years before had built 2601 South Grand Avenue in the easterly reaches of West Adams; the beginnings of that linear district's fade can be seen in this one family's early move away from it to where the affluent's residential future lay along the Wilshire corridor in subdivisions such as Windsor Square
  • Architects: Sumner P. Hunt and Silas R. Burns
  • Contractor: The Barber-Bradley Construction Company
  • Banker George A. J. Howard and his wife, Mabel Murray Howard, were the second owners of 601 South Windsor, purchasing the property in 1929; the Howards left it to their daughter, Margaret Mary Howard Miller, and her husband, W. Owens Miller. After Mrs. Miller's death in June 2014, 601 was sold the following January after 85 years in one family
  • An extensive gallery of recent interior views revealing the remarkable period preservation of 601 at the time of its 2015 sale is here
  • The Howards had been married in 1910 soon after her parents moved into 686 South Carondelet Street in Westlake. Her family remained in that house for decades; her sister, Helen Murray Swensen, later lived at 16 Berkeley Square







606 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; originally Lot 73 and 74
  • Built in 1923; BPs for a 14-room house and a 6-room garage–servants' quarters issued 6-14-1923
  • Original commissioner: securities broker George D. Chambers, who died in the house on 9-1-1936
  • Architect: Ray J. Kieffer
  • It appears that after 1940, subdivision of the original two-lot property occurred when the southerly 95' of Lot 73, which included the original garage–servants quarters to the far southeast rear of 606, listed in some early records as a dwelling, was given the address of 616. A BP for a new garage on Lot 74 was issued 4-16-1941


Following George Chambers's death, 606 South Windsor was auctioned by
his widow. The house appears to have been rented into the '40s; by
mid-decade, real estate broker Jackson Diggs had acquired it for
use as his own home and would remain for the next 30 years.
The ad above appeared in the Times on 11-7-1937.







616 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; southerly 95' of Lot 73
  • 616 South Windsor is a neighborhood anomaly. Unlike other Windsor Square residences, it is set at the extreme rear of the property in a corner against two property lines. The original structure—under the horizontal roofline at the upper left corner of the illustration above in which Windsor Boulevard is at right—appears to have been the original 1923 garage–servants quarters of 606 South Windsor when the parcel of that house was comprised of both lots 74 and 73 (please see details of 606 above). After 1940 the property belonging to 606 was subdivided, creating 616 out of the southerly 95 feet of Lot 73. A new garage was built for 606 in 1941 on its separated parcel; its former garage–servants quarters on Lot 73 became the basis for 616, which would gain a northerly wing by 1948 (this later acquiring an incongruous Victorianesque turret), and its own garage. At bottom center of the image is 606; at top center is 626
  • Veronica Porché Ali, who was divorcing boxer Muhammed Ali in 1986, acquired 616 South Windsor that year. The Alis had been living nearby at 55 Fremont Place. On December 16, 1986, Mrs. Ali was issued a permit for alterations to 616 that included the conversion of its garage into living space; a permit for the construction of a new garage was issued the same day






617 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 66, which had not previously contained a dwelling but was at one time a garden attached to 601
  • Built in 1951; BPs for house and garage issued 5-3-1951
  • Original commissioner: Ventura County subdivider Albert L. Gindling as his own home







626 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; northerly 90' of Lot 72
  • Built in 1923; BPs for house and garage issued 3-17-1923
  • Original commissioner: Alexander D. Chisholm in partnership with Evan L. Meikle; around this time, Chisholm and Meikle formed a contracting, building and real estate development company with William H. Fortine, who was also associated with this project, presumably done on spec. Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle went on to build a number of other residences in Los Angeles during the '20s, including, commencing the same month, 401 South Lucerne Boulevard
  • Realtor Charles G. Andrews was to market 626 South Windsor Boulevard but wound up occupying it himself for several years until building 400 South June Street in Hancock Park
  • Architect: listed as Alexander D. Chisholm; though not himself a licensed practitioner, his firm, like other similar organizations, most likely employed draftsmen to execute designs or subcontracted them out to other architects







627 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 67
  • Built in 1912; BP for house issued 6-26-1912
  • Original commissioner: William Crawford McKnight of St. Louis
  • Architect and contractor: Meyer & Holler a.k.a. The Milwaukee Building Company
  • According to the Los Angeles Times of October 22, 1911, the house was originally slated for a lot "on the west side of Irving boulevard just north of Wilshire"
  • Purchased by Dr. Dudley Fulton in 1919; Fulton immediately commissionerd the Milwaukee Building Company to add a garage for which a BP was issued 3-25-1919
As seen in the Los Angeles Times, 8-31-1913,
above, and on 10-22-11 when first proposed for a
lot on Irving Boulevard. McKnight may have flipped the
previous building site thus managing to reduce his
overall outlay for what would be a winter home.







637 South Windsor Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 68
  • Built in 1912 at 616 South Hobart Boulevard; BPs for house and garage issued 5-29-1912
  • Original commissioner: builder Leonard Woelz, apparently on spec; purchased by Harriet T. Patterson, a widow from Fort Wayne, soon thereafter
  • Architect: Frank M. Tyler
  • House and garage moved to 637 South Windsor in 1923 by Mrs. Patterson for continued use as her own home; relocation BPs for house and garage issued 8-20-1923; contractor in charge: Leonard Woelz
  • Occupied briefly during the mid 1930s by the large and colorful family of railroad man Albert H. Cheap, which afterward, in reverse of prevailing intracity migration, moved to West Adams to settle at 12 St. James Park
  • Demolished for parking lot in 1967; demolition BPs for house and garage issued 7-10-1967
  • Scant photographic evidence of 637 South Windsor has surface as of yet; the aerial view above, part of the USC Digital Library, was taken in 1957. At bottom center is the intersection of Wilshire and Windsor boulevards; 637 is the house directly above it







Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; USCDL