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  • Built in 1929 on Lot 254 in Tract 8320
  • Original commissioner: investment broker Percy Friedlander
  • Architect: Heth Wharton
  • On May 29, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits to Percy Friedlander for a two-story, 12-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-40-foot garage at 133 South June Street
  • Born on September 5, 1887, Percy Friedlander had plied his investment trade in his native Chicago and there later become a partner in a hosiery mill and secretary-treasurer of his father-in-law's department store, Klein Brothers; when the store was sold in 1927, Friedlander decided to move his family west and re-enter the investment business full-time. On March 13, 1928, the Times reported that Friedlander, obviously coming to town with excellent references, had been elected a member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange the day before. He had organized the firm of Davis, Friedlander & Speth, assuming its presidency, with Jack H. Davis as vice-president and Herbert Speth as secretary-treasurer, and opened offices in the Hellman Bank Building. Davis withdrew from the firm in the precipitous month of October 1929, the company becoming briefly, with A. Waller Morton in Davis's place, Friedlander, Speth & Morton, and soon after simply Friedlander & Speth, which continued into the early 1940s.
  • Percy Friedlander had married fellow Chicago native Berenice Klein on February 7, 1910, at the Standard Club in Chicago; he was 22 and she a few weeks shy of 21. The couple settled in Wilmette; Elinor Jane was born in August 1912, Alice in February 1915, and Donald in October 1920. Upon arrival in Los Angeles, the family occupied 710 South Andrews Place and then 454 South Irving Boulevard in Windsor Square, both briefly—a succession illustrating a westward drift of neighborhoods considered successively fashionable along the Wilshire corridor toward Hancock Park, in which the Friedlanders were settled in their new house by the end of 1929
  • Elinor Friedlander married bond salesman Irving Scott Heineman Jr. of San Francisco in November 1934. Bonds proving less than lucrative during the Depression, Heineman became involved for a time in cartoon production as part of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies—think Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck. Returning to the finance industry for a time he then went into wholesale clothing sales, possibly in partnership with his brother-in-law, apparel manufacturer Irvin Kaufman, to whom Alice Friedlander was married in Mexico in March 1937. The cause unclear, Donald Friedlander had died at the age of 14 on April 10, 1935. With the onset of war, Percy Freidlander decided to shutter Friedlander & Speth and concentrate on his own investments; he had also became a member of the board of directors of the Hollywood Palladium on Sunset Boulevard, which had been founded by Poverty Row film producer Maurice Cohen and opened by him on Halloween 1940. (Cohen had built 619 South June Street in 1927, selling it just as Friedlander began building 133 up the street.) The Heinemans, including their son Richard, had moved into 133 with Percy and Berenice by 1938; the extended family would be leaving Hancock Park by the end of 1943 to live in Beverly Hills, with the contents of 133 South June being put on the auction block that March after first offering the house for sale in the summer of 1941 in a tough wartime market, one only to get tougher after Pearl Harbor a few months later. The property was still on the market in July 1942, classifieds reading "A real buy. Modern Architecture Stucco & Brick. Shake roof. Swimming Pool. Very artistic." The ad noted that the property was being offered at 1/3 of its cost, with the price having been reduced to $26,500 ($420,000 in 2020 currency). Percy and Berenice would move on to live for a time at the Beverly Wilshire before settling at 525 North Maple Drive. (The Heinemans and the Kaufmans would live on South Cañon and North Alta drives, respectively)


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on March 14, 1943


  • Perhaps no better capsule biography of the new owner of 133 South June Street can be found than that prefacing in his papers now in the collection of Loyola Marymount University:
Fritz Bernard Burns (1899-1979), born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was a powerful real estate developer in Southern California. As vice-president of Dickenson & Gillepsie real estate firm in Los Angeles in the 1920s, he oversaw the development of Palisades Del Rey (now Play Del Rey). With partner F. W. Marlow, he was involved in the development of Westchester, Windsor Hills, Panorama City, parts of North Hollywood and other areas in Los Angeles. Such projects made him a prominent developer in Los Angeles and a leader in the development of mass-produced housing, resulting in community development and the notion of middle class ownership of homes as a way of life. He was, consequently, a leading civic figure in the city. Burns was also a major philanthropic benefactor to Roman Catholic institutions, including Loyola Marymount University and Aquinas College. Burns was President of the Home Builders Association of Los Angeles in 1942 and of the National Association of Home Builders in 1945.




  • Fritz Burns had married Lucille Edna Robison in June 1924, with their son Fritz Patrick Burns arriving 11 months later. The Burnses were divorced by 1940, when Fritz married Gladys Guadalupe Carson Scheller, a descendant of the pioneer Dominguez family and a widow with three children. After their Las Vegas ceremony and a honeymoon in the east, the couple settled into her house at 227 South Windsor Boulevard in New Windsor Square, from which they moved to 133 South June by the end of 1943. They remain at 133 until moving to 365 South Hudson Avenue 20 years later
  • Numerous club and committee meetings would take place at 133 South June Street during the tenancy of the Burnses. Other events included their entertainments, often under a backyard tent, such as the reception after Frances Clair Scheller married Army Air Force cadet John Morehart at St. Brendan's on April 15, 1944, and a pre-party before the Las Madrinas debutante ball at which Maria, known formally as Reyes and Pinky to family and friends, was presented in 1947. Less glamorous but probably more exciting was the fire that started in the attic on April 6, 1948; the next day the Times featured the blaze with a large image above the fold on the front page of section two that made the event appear to involve more than the $2,000 in damages reported by Fritz Burns. (An adjacent article reported on the maiden postwar voyage of the Matson Lines' refurbished Lurline, which boosted the renewed appeal of Hawaii as the favorite vacation getaway for Californians, part of the boom that went hand-in-hand with Burns's burgeoning real estate development.) With his construction team no doubt dropping everything to repair the fire damage, the Department of Building and Safety issued Fritz Burns a permit for the work within a week 

The rear of 133 South June Street as seen in the Los Angeles Times on April 7, 1948


  • While city directories through 1968 list 133 South June Street as being occupied by "G. C. Burns"—who was also being listed at 365 South Hudson—insurance man Benjamin Franklin Grier and his family were the owners of the property from at least the summer of 1965. Grier had been born Benjamin Franklin Taylor in Chicago in 1926; after his mother divorced his father she married Ormonde Grier of Los Angeles, who adopted Benjamin and his sister Joan. Benjamin married Marilyn Steward in December 1948, their families then living on the Westside. The Griers would themselves live in Bel-Air until moving to Hancock Park, where they continued a vigorous social and philanthropic life. The eldest of their three daughters, Cynthia, would in 1976 marry the remarkable Patrick Capper Haden, the U.S.C. football star and Rhodes Scholar who had just signed with the Rams. Better known as Pat Haden, he went on to a long career in sports broadcasting, served as U.S.C.'s athletic director, and was by all accounts an exemplary family man. The Griers retained ownership of 133 South June Street until shortly before Benjamin died in Santa Monica on November 4, 1999. Having hired architect Gerald Colcord for the designs, the Griers had added a terrace cover and a pool cabana to the property in 1969
  • The owner of 133 South June Street since 1998 remains in residence as of 2020


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT/Lee Harvey