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  • Built in 1927 on Lot 125 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: automobile-top maker Thomas H. Birchall
  • Architect: J. Ross Castendyck
  • On October 25, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits to T. H. Birchall for a two-story, 10-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-30-foot garage
  • There is an interesting story surrounding the construction of 667 South June Street, which was apparently meant to be the culmination of the vision of Thomas H. Birchall, who had arrived in New York from Liverpool in the fall of 1907, making his way to Los Angeles. A classified ad in the Times on June 17, 1928, offering the house for sale suggests the sad trajectory of a dream: "Don't miss—it's different...English brick home. They took years planning, months to build, now owner unfortuntely has to sell. Just finished." Born in County Lancashire on September 25, 1874, details of Birchall's years in California before his marriage to Eva Lorraine Groves in Los Angeles on January 27, 1919, are unclear; he seems, however, to have accumulated enough capital in the automobile body-building trade to build a substantial house in Hancock Park. An ad in the Times on April 22, 1928, further describes the house and situation: "Come out to 667 South June st., just north of Wilshire Blvd. and see the most beautiful English house in Los Angeles. This house was built by an Englishman for his home and no expense was spared, but change of plans compel immediate sale. House has nine rooms, brick, with slate roof, set in beautiful grounds with full grown trees. Don't miss seeing this bit of old England."
  • A serious rupture in the Birchalls' home life occurred during the construction of 667 South June Street. Thomas Birchall's ambition appears to have outstripped his means. The Depression—and the gradual demise of the touring car—would finish off his dreams. With the house sold, apparently never unoccupied by the man who had imagined it, to electrical products manufacturer John W. Harris, Birchall wound up living as a lodger on now seriously déclassé South Bonnie Brae Street, with Eva confined to Resthaven Sanitarium. On College Street just northeast of the future freeway stack, Resthaven, per the Times, "cared for women threatened with that saddest of all maladies, the mental breakdown. Resthaven was designed as a half-way house, not on the dark road from the psychopathic ward to the public asylum, but on a brighter trail between the hospital ward and the old home." The Birchalls do not appear to have gotten back together, and may have, in fact, divorced. Although born in Chicago, Eva appears to have been under the impression that she lost her U.S. citizenship by having married the unnaturalized Thomas; in her 1943 naturalization petition she swore that her "marital status with [Thomas] was terminated on about Oct. 1928 by Death" while the California death records indicate that he died on March 20, 1934. Once out of Resthaven, Eva Birchall worked as a housekeeper and in a public-school cafeteria. Sadly, she was confined to Norwalk State Hospital (now Metropolitan State Hospital) by 1950. She died on February 9, 1955
  • John Woodman Harris, born in Champaign, Illinois, on September 11, 1887,  was the vice-president of the Electrical Products Corporation, the exclusive owner in the western U.S. of the original patents for neon signs developed by French engineer Georges Claude. As the corporate demand for neon signs began to take off, especially as urban rooftop advertising, the Electrical Products Corporation placed ads in the Times and other newspapers when it completed the installation of another project—the 1930s would be neon's era. Harris and his family were living in Silver Lake when they found 667 South June Street for sale. Harris and Oklahoma-born Gertrude Engart had been married at the Mission Inn in Riverside on February 22, 1919; they moved into the new house with their son John and daughter Sally. A shakeup at Electrical Products in 1933 resulted in John Harris departing to become president of the Gyro Safety Razor Company, which seems to have foundered within a few years. The Harrises put 667 South June on the market in the fall of 1936 with plans to move to San Gabriel. A full-page tribute in The Independent of Pasadena on October 15, 1948, describes Harris's next project. The Farmers Market of Pasadena, the city's "first super food emporium," had been founded in 1933 as a simple operation where growers could market their products. After Harris took over management of the market in 1938, becoming the major stockholder and president, it grew into shopping center with a varied collection of stores and services
  • Even with the Depression easing, Hancock Park houses were still a tough sell; it appears that the Harrises rented 667 South June briefly to the head of Studebaker's west coast assembly operation, Chester K. Whittaker, before selling it to a young man who'd spent his teenage years in Hancock Park in the house his parents built at 600 Muirfield Road in 1925


As seen in the Post-Record on June 5, 1935


  • John Jacob Pike, known as Jack, was the younger of two sons of Percy Pike, president of the Republic Supply Company, an oil-field equipment firm, and of the Federal Drilling Company. Jack Pike and his wife Marion were the owners of 667 South June Street by early 1937. Percy Pike had moved his businesses and his wife Elizabeth, their sons Thomas and Jack, and daughters Wanda and Mary Elizabeth down to Los Angeles from San Francisco in 1923. The family first occupied the Homer Laughlin residence at 666 West Adams Street; though that house was only 25 years old, the Pikes soon decided that they'd rather have a new, more modern residence, if they weren't among the earlier residents of West Adams who understood that the district was in the beginning stages of being eclipsed by newer subdivisions such as Hancock Park
  • Jack Pike, who would in time become president of Republic Supply, married San Francisco debutante, Stanford campus queen, and champion golfer Marion Hewlett in the gardens of Grand View, his family's ranch near Saratoga, on May 29, 1935; Marion's nickname, apparently having to do with her habit of driving her red car at breakneck paces around the Stanford campus, was "Speedball" (some remembered it as "Cannonball"). The Pikes' daughter Jeffie was born in Los Angeles on August 6, 1940, her godmother becoming Dolores Hope, wife of Bob the entertainer. John Jacob Pike Jr. arrived in San Francisco on October 12, 1942, though this appears to have been after the Pikes had put 667 on the market, moving to 243 Muirfield Road on the other side of the Wilshire Country Club greens. The June Street house was being advertised for sale as well as for rent, unfurnished, by April 1942. The marital career of Marion Pike's mother had perhaps been a harbinger of the rocky road to come: In the process of divorcing her fifth husband, Mrs. Combs (as she was by then) committed suicide in San Francisco in November 1936. The end of the Pikes' marriage came in December 1950 after, according to the Times, three unsuccessful reconciliations. (Jack remarried; Marion, who became a well-known portrait artist—her image of Ronald Reagan appeared on the cover of Time in October 1966—remained in possession of 243 Muirfield Road until her death in 1998)
  • On April 1, 1937, the Department of Building and Safety issued Jack Pike a permit to add a second story to the garage at 667 South June to create a painting studio for his wife. The same permit called for the addition of a 10-by-13-foot laundry room to the building. The architect for these additions noted on the document was Gene Verge. On November 9, 1938, Jack Pike was issued a permit for a one-story, 18-by-19-foot addition to the west end of the garage to be used as a maid's quarters
  • Herman Clarence Burke, born in Los Angeles on July 29, 1902, was a manufacturers' agent who'd begun his business life with his father, Morris, a longtime cigar wholesaler in the city. In September 1912, Herman was seriously injured when he was struck by a car near his home at 1305 West 35th Place, though he recovered sufficiently enough to lead a normal life. He married Boston-born Lucille Mae Baltimore in June 1927, the couple in time having a daughter, Evelyn Arlene, and a son, Robert Clair. The family was living in Los Feliz when the decision was made to buy 667 South June Street, moving in by early 1943. A few months after Evelyn married in May 1949, the Burkes put 667 on the market. The property appears to have taken some time to sell, still listed in late May 1950 at the fire-sale price of $41,750 ($535,000 in 2023 currency); a large display ad appeared in the Times on August 27, 1950, offering the entire contents of the house at auction


As seen in the Times on August 27, 1950


  • Succeeding the Burkes at 667 South June Street was Dr. Patrick Connell Humphreys, whose family would retain possession for over 50 years. Dr. Humphreys was born in the north Texas town of Chillicothe on November 12, 1910. He married Ida May Compere at the Arlington Avenue Christian Church on June 15, 1936; she was the daughter of oil operator and real estate investor Wesley Eugene Compere and Mrs. Compere, who'd moved west from Shreveport and built 301 South Hudson Avenue in 1927. The Humphreyses had a son, Patrick Jr., born in August 1937, and a daughter, Pamela Agnes, born on in October 1947. On August 31, 1968, Pamela married music teacher Martin Matthew Kinney in the garden of 667 South June. The Standard-Speaker of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, home of the groom's paternal grandparents, reported that the officiant was Reverend Dr. Robert Shuler, the extremely bellicose evangelist who was against everything from alcohol to the theory of evolution and who had publicity-attracting beefs with local institutions ranging from U.S.C. to the Los Angeles Public Library. His granddaughter Jill Shuler was one of Pamela's bridesmaids and was described by the Standard-Speaker as a cousin
  • On July 26, 1960, the Department of Building and Safety issued Dr. P. Humphreys a permit for a 15-by-34-foot swimming pool; the document carried a notation that the owner was building on uncompacted fill and would release the contractor from responsibility for any future cracks. A permit issued on September 26 described the installation curiously as a "floating pool." Dr. Humphreys was an early adapter of solar, having panels installed in 1980 to heat the pool. Ida May Humphreys was issued a permit to repair chimney damage after the Northridge earthquake of January 17, 1994
  • The Humphreyses were still living at 667 South June Street when he died on December 5, 1987, age 77. Ida May Humphreys appears to still have been in possession of the property near to the time of her death at 85 on January 4, 2000
  • The owner of 667 South June Street in recent decades has been prominent activist attorney Dean Hansell, among whose distinctions is having co-founded the west coast chapter of GLAAD and having been appointed in 2016 by Governor Jerry Brown as a Superior Court judge. Echoing but blessedly very different from Pamela Humphreys's wedding officiated by evangelist Robert Shuler 54 years before, Judge Hansell married Eric Kugler in the back yard of 667 South June on March 26, 2022


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT