PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1925 on the southerly 90 feet of Lot 12 in Tract 7040. (Tract 7040 was a re-subdivision of Tract 6388; 7040's Lot 12 was originally Lot 156 of Tract 6388)
  • Original commissioner: Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle as a speculative project
  • Architect: Clarence J. Smale
  • On April 23, 1925, the Department of Building and Safety issued Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle permit for a two-story, 11-room residence and a one-story, 21-by-28-foot garage at 440 South June Street. In the early 1920s Alexander D. Chisholm had formed a contracting, building, and real estate development company, Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle, in partnership with William H. Fortine and Evan L. Meikle; Chisholm formed his own firm, the A. D. Chisholm Company, after the partnership was dissolved in 1929
  • The first owner of 440 South June Street was William Timothy Mulcahy—known as Tim—born in Beaumont, Texas, on March 26, 1890. No doubt Mulcahy was inspired to go into the oil business after witnessing the dramatic effect on his hometown of the famous gusher that became known as "Spindletop" after a well blew on a Beaumont hill by that name on January 10, 1901. Mulcahy's career in petroleum would take him to Mexico, where he married Lucrecia De Leon in 1912; their son William Timothy Mulcahy Jr. arrived on December 22 of the following year while his parents were living in Tampico. The Mulcahys lived in Caracas for two years before returning to Tampico, then spent time in Mexico City, where Mrs. Mulcahy was born. The family's permanent American address had all along been Houston, but finally the decision was made to settle in Los Angeles. They would remain at 440 South June until 1943 when, according to their subsequent Southwest Blue Book listings, they moved back to Mexico City though appearing to have also rented 1013 North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills as a local base 
  • Succeeding the Mulcahys at 440 South June Street in 1943 was real estate executive Claiborn Alexander Saint. Apparently known to some as Alex, Saint was born in Lexington, Mississippi, on October 2, 1888, moving with his family from the Deep South to California by 1905. His father, Walter M. Saint, first went into the furniture business in Long Beach and then into real estate, with his young son part of his firm W. M. Saint & Son. By 1910 the Saints had moved up to Los Angeles, where Claiborn continued selling beach property, his career path launched. In October 1917 he married Ruth Kingman of Riverside, where her father was a citrus rancher; the Saints would be living with her parents, who had retired to the city and bought at house at 1739 West 24th Street. Ruth Elizabeth Saint was born on July 7, 1924. By the spring of 1930 the Saints and the Kingmans had moved together to 855 Westchester Place in what is today called Wilshire Park; it was from there that the Saints moved to 440 South June Street
  • On February 15, 1944, the Department of Building and Safety issued C. A. Saint a permit for a partial re-roofing of 440 South June Street
  • While he lived just outside its limits for many years before moving to Hancock Park, Claiborn Saint was precisely the sort of burgher G. Allan Hancock had in mind for his subdivision when he planned it. A pillar of the downtown establishment, Saint was vice-president and secretary of R. A. Rowan & Company, the real estate firm founded by Robert A. Rowan in 1904. Rowan and his associates developed downtown properties and promoted the city's residential expansion west toward and beyond Hancock Park. Prior to the Park's inaugural, Rowan had a hand in developing Windsor Square, opened in 1911, to the degree that the Square's Lorraine Boulevard was named after his daughter. Saint had joined the company by 1917 and would spend next 53 years there. As part of his booster perspective, he became heavily involved in community affairs, serving on the boards of the Downtown Businessmen's Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association, Children's Hospital, and the Automobile Club, serving as a vice-president of the latter three organizations. Somehow Saint still found time to serve as a trustee of U.S.C. and as president of the Realty Board and the Property Owners Tax Association. Socially, Saint rose high on the provincial heap, maintaining a listing in the Southwest Blue Book and memberships in key organizations including the Los Angeles Country Club, the Bel-Air Bay Club, and, top of the heap among men aside from the smaller hunting groups, the California Club, Saint even serving as its president during 1950-1951
  • Perhaps unsurprisingly, while Claiborn Saint was happy to see development all over the rest of Los Angeles, he did not want to see commerce in his own back yard, the bourgeois precincts of Hancock Park sacred to those fond of living in such a Babbitt utopia. In 1951, the city Planning Commission was proposing the rezoning of Wilshire Boulevard between Bronson and Highland avenues to allow for a "second Miracle Mile." While very high profile developers Edward L. Rimpau (of the family that lent its name to Hancock Park's boulevard) and David Barry (developer of much of the area going back at least as far as the opening of Fremont Place in 1911) were for the change, Claiborn Saint, as part of the Hancock Park Property Owners Association, opposed it. No doubt the change would—and did—affect those houses of Hancock Park and Windsor Square closest to the boulevard, it was also true that the stretch had become known as the "dead mile" even if "Park Mile" was preferred by real estate interests 


As seen in The Mirror, February 23, 1950: The Saints, led by indefatigable daughter Ruth, were
among the socialites on hand for the reopening of Perino's after the restaurant moved into
its new location for which Paul Williams had made over a Streamline Thriftimart
grocery store at 4101 Wilshire Boulevard. Edwin Ridgway was the 34-
year-old bachelor son of Thomas C. Ridgway, who'd built
355 Rimpau Boulevard in Hancock Park in 1927.
Ruth wasn't able to snag him before
he married a rival in 1953.


  • While Claiborn and Ruth Saint were seen at all the right establishment cocktail parties having less to do with business, it was their daughter Ruth who as the classic spinster socialite would inspire the most ink among society writers over the decades. Her traditional debut year overshadowed by the war, she was presented when she was 21 at a home reception on December 23, 1945. There was then considerable coverage of her two aborted engagements. A formal tea was held at 440 South June in June 1946 to announce her betrothal to Eugene James Armstrong of Los Angeles. A ceremony was planned for the following February, which came and went with no wedding; on went the coverage of Miss Ruth Saint's seemingly nonstop social endeavors including many of her own committee meetings and cocktails parties held at home. Another marital non-event came in August 1951 when the Saints announced their daughter's engagement to Allen Maw, an old friend. The wedding would take place at All Saints-by-the-Sea in Santa Barbara in September. The news appeared in the Times, the Mirror, and the Citizen-News; on October 7 one of the Times's many breathless gossip columnists, Christy Fox, brought the matter to a conclusion with this item: "And Saay: Ruth Saint's telephone is buzzing like mad again, now that she's back in circulation! Don't say I didn't tell you bachelors...". Bachelors except the confirmed ones proved not to be much interested in 27-year-old Ruth, who persevered as a star of local Old Guard society, her parties and attendance at those of others covered diligently by the press for the rest of her life
  • Ruth Kingman Saint was still living with her husband and daughter at 440 South June Street when she died at 75 on May 13, 1967. Her widow and Ruth Jr., who had always found the house useful for entertaining, remained until 1969. On May 19, 1969, Christy Fox, still churning out his fluff in the Times, announced the move: "New View: Ruth Saint, with her father Claiborn Saint, has made the big move. They sold their longtime house in Hancock Park and are in a new apartment at El Royale up high with a view across the Wilshire Country Club golf course and the city lights at night." Fox added poignantly that father and daughter would be "off soon for a couple of weeks at Del Monte Lodge, Pebble Beach."
  • A building permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety for chimney repairs after the Sylmar earthquake in February 1971 indicated a "Mr. T. Jeffries" as the owner of 440 South June Street. The 1973 city directory lists a Tim Manning in residence. Jeffries's tenure would have been brief, Manning's longer, possibly until Thomas and Margaret Larkin arrived by the mid 1980s. During their tenure of over 20 years, the Larkins added a pool to the back yard and made several interior alterations. The property was on the market in the fall of 2012 asking $4,100,000. Subsequent owners have remodeled the interior and have made a small rear addition 


Illustrations: Private Collection; The Mirror