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  • Built in 1926 on Lot 142 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: Harry H. Belden
  • Architect: brothers Kurt and Hans Meyer-Radon
  • 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 the brothers Kurt and Hans Meyer-Radon include 336 and 346 as well as 335. Ray J. Kieffer designed Belden's projects at 300, 305, 314, 315, 324, 325, 345, 355, and 356 South June
  • On August 24, 1926, the Department of Building and Safety issued Harry H. Belden permits for a two-story, 11-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-30-garage at 335 South June Street
  • Russell Henry Ballard, executive vice-president and general manager of the Southern California Edison Company, appears to have been the first owner of 335 South June Street, buying it from Harry H. Belden by late 1928. He would not be staying long, having apparently moved in during a shaky marriage. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, on July 26, 1875, Ballard came to the United States as a child and was living in Los Angeles at the turn of the 20th century working as a bookkeeper for the Edison Electric Company after some years with General Electric in Chicago, Schenectady, and Atlanta. Having relocated to Montana by 1901 to work for the Butte Electric & Power Company he married Porterville, California–born May Spurgeon in Butte in February 1901. Her name hand-written as "Russell Harriet Ballard" on her birth certificate, their daughter was born in Butte on March 5, 1902. Ballard's listing in the 1904 Butte city directory notes that he had returned to Los Angeles, where he would rejoin Edison Electric and live for a time at Ocean Park. In 1906 Ballard hired high-end architects Hudson & Munsell to built a 10-room house at 1821 Westmoreland Boulevard, which still stands in 2023 in excellent repair. From there, the Ballards would try apartment living, first at the Leighton and then the Ansonia, both on Sixth Street overlooking Westlake (now MacArthur) Park. After a brief stay in a fourplex at 770 South Windsor Boulevard, the family moved into 335 South June, where two big things would happen. On March 16, 1928, Russell Ballard was elected president of Southern California Edison, which had been formed in 1909 when Edison Electric combined with other utilities. A year later, claiming that her husband had subjected her to five years of mental cruelty, May Ballard filed for divorce. Russell left 335 with all of his belongings and moved into an apartment at Country Club Manor at 316 North Rossmore; apparently waiting in the wings was 47-year-old Canadian-born Miss Gladys Marion Morphy, who was living at the Hershey Arms. Russell and Gladys were married in Santa Barbara on April 21, 1930. The couple would be moving to 520 South Windsor Boulevard in Windsor Square, which Gladys's sister Dorothy and her husband James Freisner had sold them but at which address the Ballards would have little time together. Russell Ballard died at 520 South Irving on the morning of August 24, 1932, after a heart attack brought on by the flu. He was age 57. He left his entire estate to Gladys, having named Harriet in his will as his heir only should Gladys have predeceased him
  • Harriet Ballard had matriculated at Marlborough and afterward gone east to Vassar. She appears never to have married and would later settle in Pasadena. May Ballard, who after the death of her ex-husband would refer to herself as a widow rather than a divorcée, remained at 335 South June Street until 1943 when she moved to an apartment at the Arcady at Wilshire and Rampart boulevards. By the end of the decade she had returned west along Wilshire to live at the Los Altos at the corner of Bronson Avenue, not far from Hancock Park. She died in her apartment there on November 30, 1959, age 84
  • Auto-parts manufacturer Herbert Arthur Henderson, an American born in Argentina, succeeded May Ballard at 335 South June Street, moving in with his North Carolina–born wife, née Ora Rogers, and their daughters Marjorie and Martha, in 1943. The Hendersons appear to have lived quietly at 335 for at least 15 years
  • Funeral industry executive Frederic Gerry Doan was in residence at 335 South June Street by early 1960. Doan's mother was Lena Pierce; he was a partner in the well-known Los Angeles funeral business, Pierce Brothers, which had its beginnings as a livery stable in the early 1880s. The original brothers' transportation enterprise evolved into hearses, by 1924 becoming, when its new facilities opened on Washington Boulevard—according to the Times in 1998—the "first full-service funeral home in the city." The firm expanded by acquiring other mortuaries as well as cemeteries, including Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood. In 1958, the Pierce family sold the company to a Texas businessman for $6.5 million. Fred Doan's cousin James R. Pierce had recently occupied 600 Muirfield Road; his uncle Mark Pierce had been living at 300 North June Street when he died on April 11, 1959. The Doans added a 20-by-40-foot swimming pool to the back yard of 335 in the summer of 1964 before putting the property on the market in the summer of 1967 asking $99,500
  • Attorney Richard W. Keefe was the owner of 335 South June Street by early 1968. A permit was issued to him by the Department of Building and Safety on March 22 of that year to add a second story to the 1926 garage to provide accessory living quarters
  • The family of Moise E. Hendeles was the owner of 335 South June Street by 1987 and remained in residence as of 2020. Hendeles was in the same business as his relatives Fred Hendeles, who lived at 115 North Rossmore Avenue, and Lazare Hendeles, who lived a few block down at 684 South June Street. The family's assisted-living homes had a rather uneven reputation; in May 1975, Lazare Hendeles, president and owner of the Garden of Lebanon Sanitarium in Downey, and his brother Fred, vice-president and co-owner—he lived at 115 North Rossmore Avenue—had each charged with "two [misdemeanor] counts of failure to report an injury and one count of neglecting duty toward a mentally retarded patient," per the Long Beach Press-Telegram. This was following a three-month investigation into the facility's operations; the Times reported that a total of 25 felony and misdemeanor counts had been issued against employees and owners of the Garden of Lebanon. Per court filings, Moise Hendeles has had his own issues regarding the care of patients in his separate health-care facilities, which may or may not be par for the course in such operations 


Illustration: Private Collection