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  • Built in 1925 on Lot 24 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: Mrs. Lillian Belle Lewis and her contractor husband Harry M. Lewis, as a speculative project
  • Architect: none listed on original building permit, though the contractor, Harry M. Lewis, was an established designer and builder in the Los Angeles area
  • On March 9, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued Mrs. Lillian Belle Lewis permits for a two-story, nine-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-24-foot garage at 608 South Highland Avenue
  • An ad in the Times on July 19, 1925, offered 608 South Highland Avenue for sale
  • Harry M. Lewis died at the age of 42 in Tucson, where he had gone for treatment of tuberculosis, on February 26, 1927. His obituary in the Times noted that "Scores of Hollywood and Beverly Hills homes were designed by Lewis during the past 18 years."
  • The first owner of 608 South Highland Avenue was native Angeleno Dr. George Anthony Zorb, who received his degree from U.S.C.'s College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was working as an assistant police surgeon at the Receiving Hospital on Hill Street when he married Freda Eckstrom in April 1917; their daughter Dorothy arrived in February 1918. The Zorbs' marriage had quickly soured. They spent considerable time during 1919 in divorce court, accusations flying from both sides. Mrs. Zorb charged mental cruelty and named a woman she suggested the doctor was involved with; he counter-charged her with cruelty, telling the court that she had come into his office and beaten him in front of patients. Freda Zorb was granted a divorce decree on December 11, but not before her lawyer introduced 11 signed statements from women purporting that Dr. Zorb had performed or assisted in "the performance of illegal operations"—apparently if not obviously, abortions. Dr. Zorb strenuously denied the charges. The matter was dismissed by the divorce court and referred to the district attorney. Zorb was hardly able to uphold his legitimacy; in 1922 he was charged with extorting a fellow physician. While apparently allowed to continue practicing medicine and able to purchase 608 South Highland, he would be in and out of trouble for decades. In February 1933, after an alcohol-fueled party aboard his yacht with his second wife, he shot a guest, physician Clair Wilson, in what Dr. Wilson asserted was an accident. Dr. Zorb was charged with assault with a deadly weapon; buying the claims of both doctors that the shooting was accidental, the court dismissed the case. In April 1952 termite inspectors tipped off tax authorities to the $95,000 in cash stashed in the attic of Zorb's Sunset Plaza Drive residence. The outcome of this latest scandal is unclear
  • Dr. Zorb's well-publicized legal troubles and sullied reputation do not seem to have curtailed his income or romantic prospects. By 1923, now 33, he was married to 23-year-old Miss Arlein May Venz of Los Angeles. Dr. Zorb seems to have courted notoriety; in April 1925, three bandits called at the Zorbs' North Mariposa Avenue bungalow asking for the doctor; finding him not to be home, they then bound and gagged Arlein, ransacked the house, and made off with $1,850 worth of jewelry. Soon after, the Zorbs noticed the sales ads for the recently completed 608 South Highland Avenue and were in residence by early 1926; Arlein Georgette Zorb arrived that July 17
  • On July 10, 1930, the Department of Building and Safety issued George Zorb a permit to add a one-story, 12-by-22-foot sun room to the rear of 608 South Highland Avenue
  • The Zorbs would remain at 608 South Highland Avenue, not necessarily quietly given a lifestyle indicated by the 1933 shooting drama, until Arlein filed for divorce in March 1937, charging her husband with inflicting physical and mental suffering. She was granted her decree in May and would be moving to an apartment at The Admiral—now the Wilshire Mediterranean—on South Serrano Avenue
  • George Zorb appears to have retained 608 South Highland after his divorce, renting it out per advertisements in the Times beginning in March 1937. After an interim renter during 1938, Dr. Harry B. Breitman leased 608 until early 1942, by which time he and his family had moved eight doors south to 658 South Highland Avenue
  • Brooklyn-born Edward J. Frayne, retired sports editor of the Los Angeles Record and most recently of the New York Journal-American, rented 608 South Highland Avenue from 1942 until 1947
  • Owning 608 South Highland Avenue by 1948 was Charles Devore, one of three Brooklyn-born brothers, née Dworetzky, who migrated to Los Angeles, their adopted name becoming well-known in Hollywood through a famous nightclub and a haberdashery still in business today. The Devores were the sons of a Russian immigrant tailor; Sy opened his first store in the New York's theater district. According to the current business's own history, "He moonlighted as road manager for the Andrews Sisters. It was his jazz band clientele and friends, the Dorsey Brothers and Count Basie, who touted Hollywood as the place where Sy should be." After he arrived on the west coast in 1944, Sy opened his eponymous men's store on Sunset near Vine, quickly becoming known as "the tailor to the stars." His youngest brother Al soon joined him in the business. Friendly with Slapsy Maxie, the Devores took over the ex-boxer's namesake nightclub on Wilshire Boulevard, a favorite hangout of the stars, of which Maxie Rosenbloom was said to be the front man for mobster Mickey Cohen, the first location having opened in 1937. The club would remain in the Devores' hands into the early '50s. Charles Devore joined his brothers in various of their California business ventures
  • Charles Devore and Janice Hazel Frankenstein had been married in the Bronx on Christmas Day 1928; they had three children by the time they moved west, Robert, Samuel, and Janice Elizabeth. In June 1950, 20-year-old Robert was jailed with companions after a car chase resulting in their arrest by Wilshire Division police for shooting out 15 street lamps on Olympic Boulevard. Janice Devore died of cancer at the age of 46 on May 23, 1952; wasting no time, Charles Devore married Josephine Potters Goldman less than five months later
  • 608 South Highland Avenue appeared on the market in February 1958
  • Carl Russell Jr. and his wife Dorothy were the owners of 608 South Highland Avenue from 1959 until 1965. While confirmation has so far proven elusive, Mr. Russell may have been the Carl Russell Jr. who was at the time vice president and director of office building planning for Welton Becket & Associates, architects and engineers
  • Sheldon W. Urlick, proprietor of an electrical-signage supply business and noted collector of classical and flamenco guitars, was in residence at 608 South Highland Avenue by 1967. He appears to have remained at 608 until moving to 367 Rimpau Boulevard by 1973
  • Steven Wintner, born Salamon Wintner in Antwerp in June 1948, was a son of Czech-born sash and door maker Ladislaw Wintner and his wife Alzbeta, who had arrived in the U.S. in September 1954, soon making their way to Los Angeles with their five children. Early on living just west of Hancock Park, most recently at 139 South Mansfield Avenue, the Wintners moved to 401 South Las Palmas Avenue by 1967. It was from there that Steven went on to buy 608 South Highland Avenue; the Wintner family appears to have still been in residence there as of 2020


Illustration: Private Collection