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315 South June Street




  • Built in 1925 on Lot 144 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: builder Harry H. Belden for resale
  • Architect: Ray J. Kieffer
  • On August 25, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued Harry H. Belden permits for a two-story, 10-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-30-foot garage at 315 South June Street
  • Harry H. Belden was a prolific builder of houses in Hancock Park, Windsor Square, and elsewhere. His Hancock Park houses include 110 North Rossmore, 324 Muirfield, 317 and 624 Rimpau, and 152 North Hudson as well as 12 of the 14 houses on June Street between Third and Fourth streets. Advertisements for Belden-built houses appearing in the Times during November 1925 refer to several residences on the block being under construction; Belden's residences in the 300 block of June Street designed by Ray J. Kieffer are 300, 305, 314, 324, 325, 345, 355, and 356 as well as our subject here, 315. (Belden's projects at 335, 336, and 346 South June were designed by brothers Kurt and Hans Meyer-Radon)
  • On November 3, 1925, Harry H. Belden added a 10-by-15-foot maid's room designed by Ray Kieffer to the rear of 315 South June Street 
  • Mrs. Anderson Rose, a widow, bought 315 South June Street from Harry H. Belden. Born in Mississippi on January 28, 1854, née Annie E. Shirley, Mrs. Rose had arrived in California with her family in 1860. Her father, South Carolinian Benjamin Franklin Shirley, had been looking for gold in Nevada County before settling in Los Angeles, where he acquired 70 acres of land in the Rancho San Antonio south of the city. Annie was 15 when on August 5, 1869, she was married off to 33-year-old Anderson Rose, who'd followed a trajectory similar to that of her father, in 1852 crossing the plains from Missouri to look for gold in Eldorado County before moving south. The year of his marriage he acquired property in the Rancho La Ballona to the west, where he raised cattle. The Roses and their three children, Mary, Bertha, and Charles, lived on their ranch and then in The Palms (as the Palms district was then called) before deciding to move into the city, to which Anderson had expanded his considerable real estate speculation. For his family he chose a lot in prime suburban West Adams to build 727 West 30th Street, the Record of March 21, 1900, noting the Roses' recent move into the new house. Anderson Rose died there after a long and painful illness, per the Times the next day, on August 30, 1902
  • Annie E. Rose would remain living at 727 West 30th Street—which still stands—until moving to Hancock Park 25 years later; she would be following an exodus from West Adams that was well underway as Wilshire-corridor residential development accelerated. Mary Rose had married in 1891, Charles six months before his father died. Bertha was graduated from U.S.C., just four blocks from home, in 1898. She would never marry and would be moving into 315 South June Street with her mother. Retaining ownership of the house, Annie Rose began to spend most of her time at the El Encanto Hotel in Santa Barbara. Bertha remained at 315 until 1939 when she moved downtown to the Women's Athletic Club; she was listed back at 315 South June in the 1942 city directory. Charles Rose died at the age of 63 in February 1943, the family appearing to still own 315. Annie Rose was featured in the Times on Sunday, January 27, 1946, the day before her 92nd birthday, as the last surviving member of the eight people, which included her parents, who founded the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles in September 1874. Mrs. Rose was not able to attend an anniversary service at the church's Westmoreland Avenue sanctuary but was given tribute. Still living in Santa Barbara, Annie Rose died at the age of 94 on September 4, 1948, by which time 315 South June Street had been sold to new owners 
  • Robert Nym Park was an early Hancock Park resident, having built 362 South Las Palmas Avenue in 1926. Putting that house on the market he was living at 250 South June Street—built in 1932 and today designated 252—by mid 1942 after a brief stay at the El Royale Apartments. From there he would move with his family back to June Street in 1948 to occupy 315, three doors south across Third Street from their former 250. Robert Park and his wife, née Helen Dorothy Smith, were both born in Muskegon, Michigan, he in June 1881 and she on Halloween 1894. They married in their hometown on October 12, 1915, the bride's father referred to in The Detroit Free Press as a Muskegon millionaire. A mining engineer, Park moved his wife west to California, settling temporarily in Modesto, where their daughter Erie Louise was born a year and 10 days after the wedding. After Robert Nym Park Jr. was born back in Muskegon on May 30, 1919, the family settled back west in Los Angeles, the Parks buying a newly built house at 501 South Mariposa Avenue (demolished in 1962), moving from there to Hancock Park after the completion of 362 South Las Palmas Avenue. With their three children grown and married—Elizabeth Owen Park had been born on April 2, 1921—the need for so large a house by Robert and Helen is unclear, but they would remain there until putting the house on the market in the summer of 1954 with plans to move to a high-rise apartment at Parklabrea, as the name of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company's massive development west of the Hancock Park neighborhood was originally styled
  • On August 29, 1954, the Times reported the sale of 315 South June Street for $55,000 to businessman Robert Howe Davis. Davis was 24 when he married 23-year-old Jane Candace Welch, who'd already been married and divorced. The Davises would have four children, with daughter Robin arriving in December 1954 not long after they moved into 315. Jane Davis was a graduate of Marlborough and had attended Bennington College in Vermont before her first marriage in 1947; in the 1970s she would receive her undergraduate degree from U.C.L.A. followed by her Master's and then her Ph.D. in Medieval Art History, with which she began her career as an art historian and college professor. By this time the Davises had divorced, she marrying Roy B. Williams in December 1966 and retaining 315 South June Street
  • On May 9, 1961, the Department of Building and Safety issued Robert Davis a permit for a 10-by-21-foot bedroom addition to 315 South June Street. On June 29, 1965, Jane W. Davis was issued a permit for the addition of a 20-by-45-foot swimming pool to the property
  • 315 South June Street spent much of 1972 on the market and reappeared in September 1974 asking $169,500, soon dropped by $4,500
  • Occupying 315 South June Street during the 1980s was Los Angeles attorney William Albert Norris, who in February 1980 was nominated by President Carter to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He served in that capacity until his retirement in 1997
  • Later owners of 315 South June have carried out minor remodelings in 1991 and 2005


Illustration: Private Collection