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429 South Las Palmas Avenue




  • Built in 1949 on Lot 95 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: real estate investor and contractor Paul Sutro as his own home
  • None indicated on original building permit; Paul Sutro is noted as contractor
  • On August 26, 1949, the Department of Building and Safety issued Paul Sutro a permit for a two-story, 11-room residence with attached garage at 429 South Las Palmas Avenue
  • Born as Paul S. Cohen in Spokane on February 20, 1911, Paul Sutro arrived in Los Angeles with his family by 1925. His father, Ralph Alman Cohen, would become a mortgage banker and soon adopt Sutro as his family name, becoming Ralph Cohen Sutro. Paul Sutro would follow his father into the investment business, in conjuction with this pursuit establishing a career as a building contactor in the 1930s. The Times would later describe him as a "prominent general contractor...long associated with property development in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Hills and the San Fernanado Valley." Sutro would become manager of the Ralph C. Sutro Company with his older brother Robert. Paul Sutro moved into 429 South Las Palmas Avenue with his wife, née Ethelwyn Ziegler, whom he'd married in November 1943, and sons Edmund, three, 18-month-old Donald, and three-month-old Julianne. Lorraine arrived in October 1954
  • In July 1955 the Sutro brothers broke ground on a new headquarters building for the Ralph C. Sutro Company set back from the southwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Longwood Avenue
  • On April 16, 1958, Paul Sutro was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a 20-by-40-foot swimming pool at 429 South Las Palmas. A permit for a 12-by-22-foot "lanai" at the northwest corner of the property was issued on February 9, 1959 
  • Going on to settle in Flintridge, the Sutros would be leaving 429 South Las Palmas Avenue by 1967. The house was on the market in the fall of 1965 with an asking price of $112,500. It is unclear as to whether the house was rented, or sold to a new owner who held it only briefly, but 429 was back on the market in January 1968 asking $125,000
  • Moving into 429 South Las Palmas Avenue in the 1970s was the family still in possession as of 2020  


lllustration: Private Collection