PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1948 on Lot 311 in Tract 8320
  • Original commissioner: physician Clarence F. Ott
  • Architect: none listed on the original building permit
  • On June 17, 1948, the Department of Building and Safety issued Clarence F. Ott permits to build a two-story, 14-room residence and a one-story, 34-by-23-foot garage/laundry at 100 South June Street
  • Clarence Francis Ott was born on July 3, 1882, in Louisville, where he would remain until moving to California in 1919. He'd had a full 20 years before that: Described as a headstrong boy, he insisted at the age of 19 on marrying 18-year-old Annie Peyton against his affluent parents' wishes; the couple eloped on December 31, 1900, wishing to be married on the last day of the 19th century. The Otts would have four daughters, the second of whom died within 10 days in 1904, and twins born in 1906. Clarence Ott was graduated from the University of Louisville's Medical Department in 1909 and practiced in that city until he decided to to move west, by which time Annie had sued him for divorce, in 1913, charging that her husband had threatened her and attempted to shoot her, per The Courier-Journal. He would fight Annie over alimony and support of the children and stiff his attorneys to boot. Finding his way to Whittier by 1919, he set up an office there and advertised daily for years in The Whittier News. He was living in Santa Monica by 1930, by mid-decade moving to the Château Élysée on Franklin Avenue before deciding to build a house at 468 Chautauqua Boulevard in Pacific Palisades in 1938. In Reno that November, Clarence, age 56, married 73-year-old widow Lucy Alexander Murray
  • Per the Times and press all over Southern California, including in Whittier, Dr. Clarence F. Ott, ever the creep, was convicted of cruelty to three of his pet dogs on November 4, 1940  It seems that Ott was in the habit of beating them with a walking stick; a former cook testified that he had thrown one of the dogs over the rim of the 50-foot canyon behind his house. The judge suspended an 18-month jail term and $1,000 fine and instead fined him half that amount and placed him on two-years' probation. Late the next year Ott tried to rehabilitate his reputation by donating an ambulance to the Pacific Palisades Citizens Defense Council, of which he was serving as chief medical officer
  • It is unclear as to whether his reputation might have caused Dr. Ott and his wife to leave the Westside and move inland to Hancock Park, and, at the ages of 65 and 83, to build an elaborate new house. He would live at 100 South June Street until his death at home on December 20, 1952. Lucy Ott, still listed at 100 in the 1964 city directory, died in her 100th year on November 18, 1964
  • 100 South June Street was on the market as a "Classic Colonial"—"white with green shutters"—by the spring of 1965. While no price was mentioned in ads, it was reduced by October
  • William Weisel, who appears to be the apartment-complex developer by that name, succeeded Lucy Ott at 100 South June Street. During the short tenure of Weisel, his wife, a member of the University Women of the University of Judaism, hosted author Ray Bradbury as speaker at a gathering of the group at 100 South June on March 26, 1968
  • On March 17, 1966, William Weisel was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a remodeling including small rear additions for a breakfast room and additional bedroom closet space upstairs. Weisel hired the esteemed residential architect Edla Muir for the design
  • Dr. Giles Mead Jr., an ichthyologist whose father was a founder of Union Carbide, was the owner of 100 South June Street by the fall of 1970. That year he became director of the county Museum of Natural History, which he would head until 1978. During his stewardship, an $8,500,000 wing was added to the museum in Exposition Park and the George C. Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits was opened. Mead also oversaw his family's 1,300-acre Napa Valley vineyard. In 1966 he had married fellow marine biologist Sylvia Earle when he was curator of fishes at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Mrs. Mead had two children and he four from previous marriages, and they would have a child of their own
  • On October 27, 1970, the Department of Building and Safety issued Giles Mead Jr. a permit for an irregularly shaped 50-foot pool on the north side of the property at 100 South June Street
  • It is unclear as to how long Giles Mead may have retained possession of 100 South June Street. He and Sylvia appear to have been separated by early 1975 and were divorced in January 1978. He was married again in April 1982, as reported in the Times; in May, the paper reported that divorce papers had been filed against him, the decree being handed down in December. Dr. Mead may have by this time been spending most of his time in Napa
  • Mr. and Mrs. Louis B. Schoen sold their house at 128 North McCadden Place in Hancock Park by the early fall of 1983 before buying 100 South June Street. The Schoens would remain at 100 until its sale on July 15, 2004, for $3,600,000
  • Among the alterations made to the property at 100 South June Street since 2004 have been a 5,065-square-foot, two-story-plus-basement addition to the rear of the house, a 180-foot wall on the First Street side, the back filling of the 1970 swimming pool, and the construction of a new pool at the rear of the yard


Illustration: Private Collection