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324 South June Street




  • Built in 1925 on Lot 148 in Tract 6388 
  • Original commissioner: builder Harry H. Belden for resale
  • Architect: Ray J. Kieffer
  • On October 27, 1925, the Department of Building and Safety issued Harry H. Belden a permit for a two-story, 11-room residence and a one-story, 32-by-38-foot garage with attached servants' quarters at 324 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, 315, 325, 345, 355, and 356 as well as our subject here, 324. (Belden's projects at 335, 336, and 346 South June were designed by brothers Kurt and Hans Meyer-Radon)
  • Real estate operator—later described as a downtown developer—George Lambert Richards was the first owner of 324 South June Street, in residence by late 1927. Born in Farmington, west of Peoria, on November 25, 1872, his family arrived as the Boom of the Eighties was getting underway, drawing Midwesterners to the Pacific in droves. On January 25, 1899, well established in business, he married Donna Mathews, born on Christmas Eve 1875 in Dixon, California. The newlyweds moved into the cottage George had recently completed at 1137 Westlake Avenue (formerly Providence Street; altered with a Mediterranean front addition in 1927, the house still stands). Their son Lawrence Wayne arrived in July 1901. In the fall of 1905 the Richardses built 2202 Juliet Street, a Frank M. Tyler design that also still stands, now hard by the 10 freeway. George Jr. arrived in February 1908; the family would remain on Juliet Street until moving to Hancock Park, one of the many Wilshire-corridor successor neighborhoods to declining West Adams
  • Classified ads in the Times during September and October 1933 carried taglines such as "TO BE SACRiFICED," "PRICE LESS THAN VALUE OF LOT," and "MUST BE SOLD." The Depression hit Hancock Park hard. George and Donna Richards would be moving to Altadena
  • Adolph Louis Weil, who had been elected president of the General Petroleum Company on February 2, 1934—Mobil gasoline would become the firm's principal product—bought 324 South June Street that year. Weil, an attorney by training, had drawn up the articles of incorporation for General Petroleum in 1912. Born in Petaluma on January 8, 1876, he had been living in San Francisco for many years, deciding to move south from Pacific Heights after being widowed. Born in San Francisco on Christmas Day 1876, Florence Greenbaum Weil died there on May 1, 1932. The Weils had three children. Via Stanford and Harvard Law, Martin became an attorney working alongside his father at General Petroleum; in October 1928 he married Dixie Platt, a member of the Zellerbach family. They would later settle in Beverly Hills. Betty lived with her father at 324 South June Street until marrying extracts manufacturer Edward Coney in September 1938 and moving back north.  Mary remained in San Francisco and would marry San Francisco bond dealer Gaylord Botham Lyon in Las Cruces in December 1941. Adolph Weil was still living at 324 South June Street when he died at home at the age of 76 on February 25, 1952. It appears that plans to sell the house were already in the works, with ads appearing in the Times a month later describing an "estate offering"
  • In an unusual twist in Hancock Park house histories, a son of the builder of 324 South June Street bought back the property his family had built in 1925 and sold eight years later. Lawrence and Zetta Richards were moving from a 1921 house at 232 South Plymouth Boulevard in New Windsor Square. Lawrence Richards was still living at 324 South June when he died at 72 on May 12, 1974. (His brother George Richards Jr. had died at 36 in March 1944.) Zetta Richards left 324 soon after
  • Owners of 324 South June Street since 1975 have added a pool (1979) and replaced it during a comprehensive remodeling during 2010. The house was on the market in early 2010 priced at $2,895,000. It sold for $10,359,500 on December 3, 2021


Illustration: Private Collection