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  • Built in 1925 on Lot 4 in Tract 7040 (Tract 7040 was a re-subdivision of Tract 6388; 7040's Lot 4 was originally Lot 179 of Tract 6388)
  • Original commissioner: attorney Louis M. Lissner
  • Architect: Gordon B. Kaufmann
  • Contractor: Royce H. Heath
  • On May 23, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued L. M. Lissner a permit for a 15-room residence with attached garage at 505 South Hudson. The document carried this notation: "Ceil. of garage and wall next to living quarters will be fireproofed."
  • After Louis Meyer Lissner was graduated from Stanford Law in December 1920, he joined his father Meyer's Los Angeles firm, Lissner, Roth & Gunter. In October 1922 he married his fellow native Angeleno Myna Eisner; the couple honeymooned in Hawaii. Mrs. Lissner was the daughter of Isidor Eisner, president of the Sun Drug Company, who was issued a permit for the foundation of his own Hancock Park house, at 611 Muirfield Road, also designed by Gordon B. Kaufmann, the day before his son-in-law was issued his permit for 505 South Hudson. The Lissners' son Robert Eisner Lissner was born in October 1923; Richard Louis Lissner came along in December 1925. Isidor Eisner had incorporated his Sun Realty Company in June 1921; Louis Lissner also became a real estate investor, doing deals on occasion with his father-in-law, though his main gig continued to be his law practice
  • Life at 505 South Hudson was not going well by the end of the decade. On November 21, 1929, Myna Lissner reported the theft of rings and bracelets from her doctor's waiting room to the police—this was a time when the press reported, often as filler, every small such story regarding the well-off, whether having to do with petty crime or other legal issues, even including private marital details revealed in court. With the Lissners having separated that August, Myna was granted a divorce on December 4. "According to her complaint," per the Times the next day, "Lissner was jealous, would become sulky and refuse to talk to her, and was continually telling her he disliked her friends. Mrs. Lissner also declared that her husband was constantly countermanding orders she had given to their household employees, which greatly embarrassed her in the running of their home." Domestic arrangements were in flux and would involve the sale of 505 South Hudson even if it would have to occur in increasingly poor economic conditions. In the meantime, Louis Lissner moved into the brand-new St. Germaine apartments at 900 South Serrano Avenue; it seems that he may have been in some denial as to the divorce, reporting to the enumerator of the 1930 Federal census on April 4 that he was married—and that Myna was also "M"  and that she, Robert, and Richard were living with him at the St. Germaine. Five days later, the enumerator working on Hudson Avenue reported that Myna was "D"—for divorced—was still living at 505 with Robert and Richard along with a cook, maid, and chauffeur
  • Myna Eisner Lissner was anxious to move on, even if to another man with, homophonically, the same name: In St. Louis on December 6, 1930, she married British-born former rabbi and well-known writer, lecturer, and authority on Jewish history Lewis Browne (who is confused in some records including his 1949 obituaries with the playwright and silent-era screenwriter Lewis Allen Browne). On December 15, 1930, the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News featured the newlyweds' picture and described their romance as having begun when she illustrated a recent book of his—one might wonder if Louis Lissner may have been justified in the jealousy and dislike of Myna's friends that she had charged him with in court. In any case, Myna's remarriage appears to have helped him get over any regrets he may have had about her; he married divorcée Elizabeth Marshutz in January 1932. In July 1931, 505 had been advertised for sale in the Times, though no asking price was given. With the economy in freefall, Hancock Park houses were by now white elephants and sellers were often forced to rent their properties to still-prosperous prospects at bargain rates, especially if they wanted to move on with their lives   
  • Santa Barbara native Cresap Placidus Watson, an oil company executive, succeeded the Lissners at 505 South Hudson Avenue. Watson and his wife, née Marion Shaw of Greenwich, Connecticut, and their young children Nancy and Cresap Shaw Watson had arrived in Los Angeles from Fort Worth a few years before, renting 95 Fremont Place before moving on to lease 505. When the family was counted in the 1940 census, they were still at 505, recorded as renting the house for $200 a month. Curiously, though, "C. P. Watson" is listed as the owner of the house on a building permit issued on April 15, 1940, though the 8-by-10-foot backyard playhouse was likely a portable building
  • While 505 South Hudson Avenue might have been presumed to still be owned by Louis Lissner, or his former wife, or, perhaps by Sun Realty, the legal possessor of it in 1940 is unclear. (Myna was now Mrs. Lewis Browne, though she would be divorcing him in 1941 in order to marry for a third time in March 1942.) An item in the Times on May 17, 1942, confuses the ownership issue even further by reporting that "John W. and Elizabeth McGowan" had just sold 505 to retired department-store executive Ross Welch and his wife Anna for $17,500. Classified ads had run early that March offering 505 at $17,500; curiously, by the end of that month, the price had been reduced to $14,000 ($228,000 in 2020 currency). It could be that the McGowans bought the property at the lower price and flipped it to the Welches for the higher; at any rate, no significant additional information has been found regarding the McGowans, though the Welches were indeed in residence at 505 by the end of 1942
  • Not to be confused with the contemporaneous James O. Welch Company, founded in 1927 in Cambridge, Massachusettes, and the famous manufacturer of Junior Mints, Los Angeles's Welch Candy Company had been started as a wholesale supplier of confectionery to the J. W. Robinson department store. Ross Welch was Robinson's director of publicity and had introduced Harry Robinson, son of the store's founder, to the candies his brother Charles was manufacturing in Vancouver, B.C.; Robinson began to offer the Welch's line at his downtown emporium in the fall of 1927. After his retirement from Robinson's a decade later, Ross and Anna Welch had moved to Hermosa Beach; on May 1, 1942, The Redondo Reflex reported that the couple was returning to live in the city. It seems that retirement didn't agree with Welch, who became active again in local business and civic matters. He had been working, and would continue to do so tirelessly, for the All-Year Club, Southern California's tourist promotion organization, and he was on the board of directors of the Van de Kamp bakery firm. In August 1942 he was appointed to the city's Board of Public Utilities and Transportation. In December 1952 Welch resigned from that board, described in the press at the time as "one of the city's outstanding authorities on transportation and other utility problems." He was still living at 505 South Hudson Avenue when he died on August 12, 1953. Anna Welch appears to have remained in possession of the property until her death on January 4, 1962. There was a new owner by April
  • Third-generation funeral director Gordon Burton Armstrong was in possession of 505 South Hudson Avenue soon after the death of Anna Welch. The Armstrong Family Mortuary was founded in Los Angeles by his grandfather Burton H. S. Armstrong in 1903 and is still operating in 2021. Armstrong and his wife Beverly, who was active outside home as a fund-raiser for charitable causes, had three sons, Scott, Bob, and Greg, who followed the trajectory of many Hancock Park boys by matriculating at the nearby Third Street Elementary, John Burroughs Junior High, and Los Angeles High School. Bob would become the fourth generation at the Armstrong firm, retiring after 46 years. The family would remain at 505 South Hudson until 1967. On April 8, 1962, Gordon Armstrong had been issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to change some interior partitions at 505 
  • Louis E. Read and his family were occupying 505 South Hudson by 1968
  • Permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety for a new 18-by 40-foot swimming pool and spa at 505 South Hudson Avenue was issued to an owner identified only as "Betesh" on July 25, 1977. In January 1978 classified ads began to run in the Times advertising the house for sale at $425,000. An ad for a moving sale in May 1985 suggests further turnover. Owners since then have maintained the house but appear to have made few alterations to it


Illustration: Private Collection