FOR AN INTRODUCTION TO WINDSOR SQUARE, CLICK HERE

South Irving Boulevard
600 block




604 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; northerly 80.06' of Lot 166
  • Built in 1920; BP for house issued 12-16-1919; for garage 1-9-1920
  • Original commissioner: Real estate developer John E. Adams of the firm of Adams & Sloan, for resale along with 620 (see below)
  • Architect: Daniel C. Messinger
  • Contractor: George F. Sloan
  • By 1924, 604 South Irving was owned by automobile man Earl R. Carpenter. Carpenter had been a west coast manager for the Studebaker Corporation before joining the make's local distributor, Paul G. Hoffman
  • Carpenter's wife, Elsie, died after an automobile accident not far from home; Mr. Carpenter was driving when their car collided with another at Sixth Street and Arden Boulevard on 5-15-1932
  • Within a few years, Carpenter was remarried to Ann Tipton, who had been widowed in January 1933. She and her son moved into 604 with Carpenter and his three young sons
  • While the Carpenters put 604 on the market in May 1955, they remained in the house until at least 1956 before selling. It was at this time that J. Paul Getty was planning a much bigger commercial development than just the Tidewater Building that replaced 641 South Irving in 1958 (see 605 and 641 below); his plans for the block across Irving from 604 created uncertainty as to the value of the houses nearby. The house was on the market at least once after the departure of the Carpenters, including in October 1960. Advertisements in the Times noted its proximity to the Getty block and that the house was "priced under land value"; with Getty's expansion plans finally quashed, 604's survival was assured
  • Earl Carpenter, who retired from Hoffman in 1948, served on the City Planning Commission and on the Los Angeles Board of Education from 1953 to 1959; he died in 1967. Ann Carpenter, who later lived at the El Royale, died at 100 in 1996


Adams & Sloan's 604 South Irving was first marketed by the real estate firm of Kells & Grant, which
promoted the house during 1920. By early the next year, it had been turned over to an
auctioneer, who ran this advertisement in the Los Angeles Times on 1-23-1921.






605 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lots 157 and 120 and northerly 25' of Lot 158
  • Completed in 1921; BP for house issued 10-8-1920; for garage 6-22-1921
  • Original commissioner: Cafeteria operator Paul P. Paulson
  • Architect: Meyer & Holler a.k.a. the Milwaukee Building Company
  • Contractor: The Milwaukee Building Company
  • The Los Angeles Times of May 8, 1927, reported the sale of 605 South Irving to architect, contractor, and developer Lewellyn J. Smith; a large announcement placed by Smith in the paper 11 days later offered the contents of the house for sale: "This palatial residence has been sold without the furnishings and these must be sold, regardless of what they bring, within the next few days." It seems that Smith's intention was to flip the property
  • Texas-born oil operator Leslie M. Lockhart and his recent wife Genevieve were the owners of 605 by early 1928. The Lockharts had a daughter, Jeanne, born on 6-28-1927; a son, Leslie M. Lockhart Jr. was born on 8-31-1928 and would die on 7-11-1929. The Lockharts later divorced; Genevieve was remarried to a Mr. Hill; in 1945, she died. That same year, Leslie married a Fort Worth–born woman named Clearine
  • During the early 1940s, 605 was rented by newlyweds Mr. and Mrs. George E. Acret until Leslie and Clearine Lockhart moved in; they were at 605 by 1948. That year, a brick addition for a large meat freezer was made to the northwest corner of the house (BP issued 3-29-1948), apparently to satisfy the appetites of two Texans
  • During their acrimonious divorce proceedings in 1952, news reports described Lockhart as "one of the world's richest oil men" and tallied possessions including three planes, two yachts, and several ranches; the estranged couple occupied separate wings of 605 during the year. In March, despite her public charges of having been manhandled by her drunken husband, a smiling Mrs. Lockhart posed in her wing of 605 for a Los Angeles Examiner photographer. Jerry Giesler was her attorney
  • After Leslie M. Lockhart died in San Antonio on 11-1-1967, he was buried at Forest Lawn with his first wife and her mother
  • 605 was later owned by J. Paul Getty and his Tidewater (subsequently Getty) Oil Company, which had plans to buy (at least) the entire block bounded by Wilshire, Sixth, Irving, and Lorraine, demolish all houses, and create an office park
  • In the mid 1970s, 605 was occupied by Lee and Anna Strasberg of the Actor's Studio
  • After much wrangling with neighbors unimpressed by the 1958 replacement of 641 South Irving with a massive office building, Getty donated 605 to the City of Los Angeles in 1976 for its current use as the official Mayor's Residence
Before the walls, gates, security, and oversized parking lot, the official
Los Angeles mayor's residence was just another of the city's large number
of Tudor Revival houses popular in the mid-aughts and again in the 1920s. In
addition to a television antenna, what has been lost in earthquake retrofittings
is the house's exuberant barley-sugar chimney. The entirety of Lot 120, extending
to Lorraine Boulevard and upon which no dwelling was ever built, became 605's rear
garden in the 1920s. Below: A southwesterly view of the house as it appeared in
the Los Angeles Evening Express on June 3, 1922; in it is revealed the house's
original corner chimney, now cut down to the roofline and capped. At the
street corners are the original tract's Windsor Square Special lamps.








610 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; southerly 45' of Lot 166 and northerly 15' of Lot 165
  • Built in 1938; BP for house issued 12-16-1937; for garage 1-18-1938
  • Original commissioner: hotel and real estate operator Irving Shafer
  • Architect per the Los Angeles Times of 6-20-1937: William J. Todd
  • Engineer: Clyde N. Dirlan
  • Contractor: Samuel J. Fishkin
  • Shafer, whose parents had moved into 638 South Irving, three doors south, by 1941 (see below), remained at 610 until at least 1956 before moving to Beverly Hills; the house was occupied by dairyman Leo Marantz by 1960. Marantz had founded Golden Creme Farms in 1947
  • The Marantz family appears to have retained 610 South Irving until at least the time of Leo's death on 3-20-1993






617 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; southerly 80' of Lot 158
  • Built in 1923; BPs for house and garage issued 9-21-1922
  • Original commissioner, architect, and contractor: Preston S. Wright Company, for resale. Wright built 627 next door at the same time (see below)
  • Sold to packing company executive Fred B. Neuhoff in the summer of 1926; he and his wife Erma remained until 1952







620 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; southerly 90' of Lot 165
  • Built in 1920; BP for house issued 12-30-1919; for garage 2-13-1920
  • Original commissioner: Real estate developer John E. Adams of the firm of Adams & Sloan, who built 604 South Irving at the same time (see above); for resale
  • Architect: David S. Haag
  • Contractor: George F. Sloan
  • The house was sold by Adams & Sloan to well-known Los Angeles boxing promoter Jack Doyle by the end of 1920. In a property swap in May 1925, Doyle exchanged 620 with silent film star Earle Williams for a parcel at the southwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Bixel Street 
  • Williams died in the house on 1-25-1927. His widow, Florine Walz Williams, was afterward charged with grand theft for misrepresenting the house's title when borrowing against it. (She also had another man's baby without benefit of clergy before she was extradited from New York; she was given probation.) Once matters were settled, 620 reverted for unclear reasons back to Jack Doyle, who, though living in Santa Monica, was the owner of the house in the summer of 1930. On 7-10-1930, he was issued a BP to replace the cement floor of the front terrace
  • Occupied by real estate developer Paul Louis Corrigan by the summer of 1933; Corrigan remained at 620 until he built a new house for his family at 303 South Plymouth Boulevard in 1937
  • Moving from the house originally at 637 Lorraine Boulevard around the corner—one relocated to Lorraine in 1925 and then to Rossmore Avenue in 1980—attorney Hubert F. Laugharn acquired 620 in 1938. Laugharn was listed there in the city directory at least into the 1970s. His son, Hubert F. Laugharn Jr., moved into 426 Lorraine Boulevard by 1960, and would also remain in Windsor Square for decades
  • Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #628




The house was photographed during its brief
ownership by Earle Williams during the mid 1920s;
the same view 90 years later reveals only a few changes,
including a second driveway entrance to connect at the rear
with the northside entrance; still-extravagant though different
landscaping; and the removal of the original entrance walk and
its three sidewalk steps. The palm tree at the curb has grown
tall; the "Windsor Special" lamppost with its monogrammed
base is in its original position—only the original three-light
fixture has been replaced, as happened tract-wide not
very long after the vintage view of 620 was taken.



The construction firm of Adams & Sloan built 620 South Irving
along with the then-adjacent 604 and marketed the two
together during the spring of 1920. Above is one in
a series of classifieds ads that appeared during
May of that year in the Los Angeles Herald.







627 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 159
  • Built in 1922; BPs for house and garage issued 9-1-1922
  • Original commissioner, architect, and contractor: Preston S. Wright Company, for resale. Wright built 617 next door at the same time
  • Sold to Mr. and Mrs. Herman Henneberger immediately. Henneberger was a New York businessman who had married Vera Jevne, daughter of Los Angeles retail and wholesale grocer Hans Jevne, in 1906. Herman would join his father-in-law's firm
  • Hans Jevne died at 627 South Irving on 5-6-1927
  • The Hennebergers' divorce, apparently final in 1929, was revealed when newspapers announced Herman's imminent remarriage in July 1931. As of April 1930, Herman was still living at 627, while Vera had moved to Philadelphia and would soon remarry herself
  • As the dust settled at 627 South Irving, the house was acquired by Harold H. Braly, brother of Vera's late sister Mina's husband, Arthur Braly. Harold was killed in an automobile accident near Bakersfield on 12-12-1931
  • Having been acquired by a Pearl A. Detrich, the Times of 11-15-1936 reported the sale of 627 to Louis Lichtenheim of New York; the sale price was $40,000, including furniture. Lichtenheim would be moving from 455 Lorraine Boulevard around the corner
  • An auction of the contents of 627 was held for Lichtenheim on 2-20-1939; the house itself was on the market by that fall


An undated view of a whitewashed 627 South Irving Boulevard: The chimney required rebuilding
after the 1971 Sylmar earthquake; at that time if not before or subsequently, it received the
current herringbone brickwork panels seen today. Other apparent revisions to the
façade include one to the arrowslit on the main gable. The inset porch
over the southerly wing now has a wrought-iron cover.







628 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; northerly 100' of Lot 164
  • Built in 1920; BPs for house and garage issued 1-10-1920
  • Original commissioner: Sanson M. Cooper for his own firm on spec
  • Architect: Robert D. Jones in partnership with Sanson M. Cooper acting as contractor
  • Real estate operator Robert H. Parker occupied 628 South Irving from 1922 to 1925; he would move on to another spec house at 624 Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park
  • By 1926, 628 was the home of William H. Lyman, a recent arrival in Los Angeles from Illinois. There Lyman had established the Galesburg & Kewanee interurban railroad; his chief business was the Boss Manufacturing Company, reputed to be largest cloth glove manufacturer in the world, with 20 American branches factories
  • Lyman died at 628 South Irving on 12-2-1930; his widow, Elizabeth, remained in the house until at least 1948. She died in Los Angeles on 8-5-1951







638 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lot 163 and southerly 5' of Lot 164
  • Built in 1914 at 540 South St. Andrews Place; BP for house issued 4-16-1914; for garage 3-30-1914
  • Original commissioner: insurance executive Charles H. Bareford, apparently as an investment  
  • Architect: Frank M. Tyler
  • Bareford acted as his own contractor
  • House and garage acquired by Herman Levi, vice president of the Capitol Milling Company, in 1915; he moved them to 638 South Irving in 1923 for continued use as his own home. Relocation BP for house issued 6-19-1923 (corrected 7-18-1923); for garage 6-19-1923; Kress House Moving Company in charge
  • By 1941, Levi had sold 638 to Jacob and Sarah Shafer; their son Irving had built 610 South Irving, three doors north, in 1938. Jacob, who was in the hotel and real estate business with his son, died on 8-21-1942. Mrs. Shafer remained at 638 until her death in Los Angeles on 3-6-1960
  • Management consultant Frederic A. Wyatt lived at 638 during the mid 1960s; by 1967, it belonged to a Catholic religious order







641 South Irving Boulevard


  • Windsor Square Tract 1390; Lots 116, 117, 161, and 162
  • Built in 1922/1923; BP for house foundation issued 4-12-1922, for house itself 10-30-1922; for garage 7-16-1923
  • Original commissioner: William O. Jenkins
  • Architect: T. Beverley Keim
  • Contractor: William A. Larkins
  • FOR A COMPLETE HISTORY, PLEASE SEE 641 South Irving Boulevard





Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; LAPL; USCDL; LAEE