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  • Built in 1929 on a parcel comprised of Lots 1 and 2 in Tract 7040. Tract 7040 was a re-subdivision of Tract 6388; its Lots 1 and 2 were previously Lots 181 and 182 of Tract 6388)
  • Original commissioner: automobile dealer and financier Frederick S. Albertson
  • Architect: Alfred Kenneth Kellogg
  • Contractor: A. D. Chisholm Company; in the early 1920s Alexander D. Chisholm had formed a contracting, building, and real estate development company, Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle (William H. Fortine and Evan L. Meikle); A. K. Kellogg had been working for the firm as a designer when he was given the commission for 401 South Hudson Avenue. The architect carried on in the employ of Chisholm, who formed his own company after the Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle partnership was dissolved in 1929. Kellogg and Chisholm were also responsible for 501 South Hudson—which, despite its address, is next door to the south of 401
  • On February 20, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued F. S. Albertson a permit for a two-story, 20-room house with attached garage; curiously, this document does not specifically name A. K. Kellogg as the architect. On October 11, a permit was issued for a poolside dressing-room outbuilding; this document specifically indicates Kellogg as the designer
  • Kansas City Hudson dealer Frederick Stubbs Albertson came to California in 1913 and began selling the same make of automobile in Long Beach. The next year he moved up to Los Angeles, where Southern California Hudson distributor Harold L. Arnold appointed him sales manager of Arnold's new line, the Dodge, which was introduced in the fall of 1914. In the spring of 1918 Albertson became the Dodge distributor himself and, with his brother Myron, who'd come west in 1916 and had been working for Arnold in Pasadena, opened the Albertson Motor Company. Their first Dodge showroom was at Eleventh and Hope streets; they broke ground for a new building at the northeast corner of Figueroa and what is now Venice Boulevard in August 1919. (Myron lived not far from his brother in a Windsor Square house he built at 340 South Plymouth Boulevard in 1926)


The Albertson Motor Company's 1919 showroom still stands on Figueroa as Downtown L.A. Nissan


  • Fred Albertson married Hazel Hanna in her hometown of Holdrege, Nebraska, on June 29, 1910. Barbara Albertson was born in Long Beach on February 25, 1914, soon after the Albertsons arrived in California; her sister Jean came along on May 11, 1915. The Long Beach Press reported on April 15, 1916, that the Albertsons had moved to Los Angeles and had settled into the recently built 433 South Oxford Avenue in the Francisca Park tract, one of the many developments flanking Wilshire Boulevard that opened in the 1910s. These subdivisions east of Wilton Place were generally laid out densely; once the larger suburban lots of Hancock Park and similar roomier tracts became available, those who could afford to move, did. By 1923 the Albertsons were living in another recently built house on Canyon Drive, this one on a very large lot in Hollywood. It was from there that the family moved to Hancock Park; Barbara and Jean were attending Marlborough
  • On April 28, 1929, the Times reported that among the buildings the A. D. Chisholm Company had under construction was the "$250,000 English brick home of F. S. Albertson, 401 South Hudson avenue, Hancock Park" ($250,000 would be $3,800,000 in 2021). On May 29 Archibald McLellan, a carpenter working with his brother Sinclair on the project, accidentally killed himself with the backstroke of his own hammer. Not until a year later did the Times report—on May 4, 1930—that 401 South Hudson was finished and that the Albertson family had moved in. "The home is of English brick and stone construction with [a] heavy rustic slate roof.... The main rooms and hall are paneled in black walnut with hand carving and marble fireplaces in living-room and library. The bedroom walls are done in canvas and oil, and imported wall paper. The garden is landscaped, containing summer house, swimming pool, and tennis court with background of live oak trees and rare shrubs."
  • By the mid 1920s Fred Albertson had done so well selling Dodges that he was appointed to the board of directors of Dodge Brothers in March 1926, his directorship appearing to have lasted until Chrysler bought Dodge two years later. The Albertson name would be associated with Southland automobile sales for decades to come. Meanwhile, Alberston had gone into investment banking and began serving on the boards of various local finance operations alongside Establishment power brokers such as Lee Allen Phillips, Edwin Janss, J. B. Van Nuys, George I. Cochran, and Stuart O'Melveny. Albertson would be building one of the biggest and most prominent houses in Hancock Park, the Establishment's preferred address now that West Adams was thoroughly eclipsed by new subdivisions, though it must be said that Hancock Park itself was facing stiff competition in appeal to the rich by (still) considerably grander Bel-Air and Holmby Hills
  • The Albertsons would remain at 401 South Hudson Avenue for 25 years. The house would be the scene of the usual bourgeois entertainments, including many alumnae meetings of Mrs. Albertson's beloved college sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, considered nationally the domain of provincial debutantes and future circle-pinned Junior Leaguers. Jean Albertson beat her older sister to the altar when she married Austin Hurlburt Peck of Pomona at Los Angeles's old-guard Episcopal church, St. John's in West Adams, on November 9, 1939; a reception followed at 401 with the bride's mother wearing silver lamé. Barbara surprised her friends, according to the Pasadena Post of June 2, 1940, by marrying Robert Manuel Sutton of South Pasadena at noon the day before, ceremony and reception taking place at 401 South Hudson Avenue. Both girls were, naturally, Kappas—Jean at Stanford and Barbara at U.C.L.A.—and Junior Leaguers. Weekends were spent at the Albertsons' ranch in Ventura County, a ranch being the western version of the eastern country house whether any actual ranching went on or not. It seems that the only rain on the family's parade during their time at 401 was the automobile accident Fred Albertson had at the corner of Sunset and Bronson on July 17, 1934; the Hollywood Citizen-News reported that he was unhurt. Over time the Albertsons climbed automotively, above mere Hudsons and Dodges; in the spring of 1945, they were advertising their 1937 Packard V-12 limousine for sale for $1,500. By 1956 the Albertsons had decided to downsize to an 11th-floor apartment at Park La Brea in the city and spend more time at their house in Palm Springs
  • The next occupant of 401 South Hudson Avenue was another car dealer; it is unclear as to whether Robert A. Yeakel rented or owned the property, Yeakel operated a Crenshaw Boulevard Cadillac agency with three of his ten brothers (the youngest of the ten, born in 1921, was named Warren Harding Yeakel). The Yeakel brothers' father Carl had been a prominent insurance and real estate man and an early automobile dealer in Alton, Illinois. After the car in which he was riding in downtown Alton with two-year-old Robert collided with a fire truck in November 1921, the child survived with just cuts and bruises, while Carl Yeakel, though physically unhurt, never recovered from the shock and had a severe nervous breakdown. He died in 1927, Mrs. Yeakel having taken over his business interests. She and all but one of the 11 children—there was one daughter—moved to Los Angeles not long after the accident, apparently leaving her husband behind in a hospital. In addition to growing up to sell Cadillacs, Robert, John, and Harry Yeakel also operated Oldsmobile and Chrysler-Plymouth agencies in Southern California, advertising heavily on television. They also became well known in road-racing circles. In January 1957, Robert Yeakel announced his run for mayor of Los Angeles; he conceded to the incumbent Norris Poulson in April. Yeakel was in the habit of flying his own plane almost daily between his businesses and homes in Hancock Park, Lido Isle, and the desert; on November 3, 1960, the single-engine Piper Comanche he was piloting, his sons Kenneth and Robert Jr. and a business associate aboard, struck power lines in Pomona before crashing on the San Bernardino Freeway in Ontario. All aboard died as well as a motorist on the ground. Yeakel had left 401 South Hudson Avenue by the time of his death; one of Los Angeles's leading businessmen and philanthropists had purchased the property and was in residence by late 1959



  
  • Insurance and savings-and-loan magnate Howard F. Ahmanson and his wife Dorothy bought 401 South Hudson Avenue in 1959, moving from the Fudger-Hughes house at 211 Muirfield Road, seen in our title image at top. On November 3, 1959, Los Angeles Mirror News columnist Wanda Henderson reported on the first big party given by the Ahmansons at 401. The invitation to the "look see" carried the postscript "Finished or not," meaning the couple's renovation of the house. "Guests hardly took time to nod to one another," per Henderson. "From the moment the carved door opened onto the spacious foyer with its 30-foot domed ceiling, all you could see were the golden oak paneled walls glowing with paintings of the old masters.... The Ahmansons have transformed their home into a magnificent gallery, each room and hallway a unique setting for paintings and sculpture." (It seems that the type of wood used in the house's paneling varied with the reporter.) There were pin-spot-lit works by Dutch masters De Hooch, Vinckboon, and Ter Borch mixed with at least one Titian and seascapes by Millard Sheets, the celebrated California scene painter. As an architectural designer, Sheets became known from 1955 for his commissions for branches of Ahmanson's Home Savings & Loan Association throughout Southern California that were distinguished by elaborate mosaic façades that have become iconic. The Ahmansons' collection of contemporary work lined halls "splashed with the colors of the moderns." Among the guests at the party were Fred and Hazel Albertson, for whom it was described as a nostalgic evening, they having taken "a whole year to build this handsome family home" and who were now, 29 years later, "seeing it through eyes of new owners." Jean Albertson's room now belonged to the Ahmanson's eight-year-old son Howard Jr., who was nicknamed Steady by his father
  • Despite the diverting glamour of their housewarming, all was not copacetic in the Ahmanson household. On May 6, 1960, after nearly 27 years of marriage, Dottie Ahmanson sued Howard, "financier, art collector and yachtsman," for divorce citing grounds of mental suffering and extreme cruelty, per the Times. The couple had separated a few weeks before; Howard hoped for an amicable outcome. A final settlement was reached on January 10, 1962. Howard got the house. Steady Ahmanson would grow up to describe himself as having an unhappy childhood and resentful of his father and his background—though not resentful enough to cause him to reject vast inherited wealth. According to what seems to be a press release available as an online biography, Ahmanson's "public activities focus on deepening awareness and fostering better policy regarding issues including housing affordability, land use, the abuse of eminent domain, and the rule of law as a fundamental safeguard against the abuse of poor and those without influence." Other sources such as The Guardian recount his enthusiastic embrace of notably fundamentalist Christian causes including those that promote un-Christ-like rejection of those they deem immoral and his interest in the sorts of anti-science groups that promote, for instance, rejection of Darwin's theory of evolution. In 1985 The Orange County Register quoted Ahmanson as saying, "My goal is the total integration of biblical law into our lives." 
  • Dottie Ahmanson would remarry in 1966. On January 14, 1965, Howard Ahmanson Sr. married Caroline Leonetti, described in the press as a "beauty expert and operator of a charm school." Ahmanson retained at 401 South Hudson Avenue; after his death on June 17, 1968, while in Belgium with his wife and son—he was two weeks shy of 62—The New York Times wrote that "Mr. Ahmanson ran his empire from his home in Hancock Park, one of the older, more élite residential preserves close to downtown Los Angeles."
  • During Howard Ahmanson's tenure at 401 South Hudson Avenue, the house was technically owned by the Oakshire Corporation, a subsidiary of  H. F. Ahmanson & Company, which may or may not have been useful in Ahmanson keeping the house for himself in the divorce. On October 28, 1966, the Oakshire Corporation was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for the enclosure of an existing 15-by-44-foot porch to create a tap room and for the addition of an 18-by-32-foot morning room. In 1967, a permit was issued in Ahmanson's name for the addition of a 9-by-11-foot projection room
  • Owners of 401 South Hudson Avenue after the departure of Howard Ahmanson have carried out a number of remodelings and additions; in 2001, an additional 370 square feet was added to the first floor



Illustrations: Private Collection; USCDL