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  • Completed in 1926 on Lot 5 in Tract 7040 (Tract 7040 was a re-subdivision of Tract 6388; 7040's Lot 5 was originally Lot 178 of Tract 6388)
  • Original commissioner: garment manufacturer and wholesale dry-goods dealer Guy D. Sisson
  • Architect: Robert B. Stacy-Judd
  • On December 19, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued Guy D. Sisson a permit for a nine-room residence with attached garage at 515 South Hudson Avenue
  • The description of Guy Sisson's occupation varies from record to record, though all associate him with the garment industry; in the 1926 city directory, he and his wife Kathryn were listed as manufacturers' agents; in the 1930 directory, he is selling corsets wholesale. Sisson had had architect Frank M. Tyler build him a house at 442 South Normandie Avenue in 1914 (demolished in 1957) and one at 445 South Kenmore Avenue in 1917 (demolished 1984), from which he moved to Hancock Park. Press references to Sisson as a "clubman" appear to stem from his involvement with the Southern California Athletic and Country Club, an ambitious 13-story facility planned for the site of the Nicholas Rice house at 2520 Wilshire Boulevard but never built. The project's bankruptcy may have led to the Sissons' departure from 515 South Hudson; the property was on the market, at one of the worst times in Hancock Park's real estate history, by early January 1930. The asking price was $65,000 (just under $1,000,000 in 2019 dollars)   
  • London-born Robert Stacey-Judd, whose offices were on Hollywood Boulevard, would occasionally depart from his signature pre-Columbian Revival style for residential work such as his English Norman design at 515 South Hudson Avenue. Stacy-Judd is best known for his Mayan Revival Aztec Hotel in Monrovia, opened on September 1, 1925 (the name Aztec was chosen by the architect as it was more familiar to the public than the word "Maya" or the Mayan culture). Eccentric in his personal life as well, Stacy-Judd sought an injunction against his estranged wife Anna in the spring of 1925 to restrain her from talking about him. While Superior Court Judge Walter Gates acknowledged that Mrs. Stacy-Judd's chatter could be seen as "a bit catty," he gave the opinion that "no court possessed sufficient power to stop a woman from talking" when he denied the request


Robert Stacy-Judd's design as seen in the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News on March 7, 1926


  • The Sissons sold 515 South Hudson Avenue to banker Arthur Elon Huntington and his wife Hattie, who had been renting a house at 1733 North Wilton Place in Hollywood. Arthur Huntington was a vice president and director of California Bank and in May 1929 had been elected president of the California Trust Company. The Huntingtons' daughter Winifred married attorney Laurence B. Martin at 515 on October 6, 1934; shades of the later film version of Stella Dallas, the altar set up for the ceremony was placed in front of a large living-room window. The Huntingtons had 515 on the market soon after Winifred's wedding, though it would take four years to sell. They remained at 515 until in 1938 moving to 1164 South Orlando Avenue in South Carthay, just around the corner from their daughter and son-in-law. Mr. Huntington died there suddenly on March 16, 1939 
  • Industrialist and oil operator John Weigle Schmid and his wife Nina bought 515 South Hudson Avenue from Arthur and Hattie Huntington; they would be in residence until 1951. According to the 1940 Federal census, the Schmids had an adopted 14-year-old son, William J. Rogers, though he doesn't appear on the Schmids' enumeration in 1930 while they were renting 153 North Irving Boulevard or in later available information on the Schmids
  • Moving from Los Feliz, wholesale fruit and produce broker John S. Arena bought 515 South Hudson Avenue in 1951. Arena and his wife Anna had four grown daughters, now all married and living elsewhere; perhaps the commodious 515 was meant to be a family gathering place. The Arenas sold the house in 1961 and moved to the recently-built 420 South Plymouth Boulevard in Windsor Square
  • On July 7, 1953, John S. Arena was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to replace 15 casement windows at 515 South Hudson
  • The Arenas put 515 on the market in late 1960, first pricing it at $74,500 ($640,000 in 2019)
  • James Thomas Townsell, an attorney practicing in Inglewood, moved into 515 South Hudson Avenue in 1961. Both he and his wife née Elsie Jones were active in the Holy Family Adoption Service; he was secretary of the organization and she president of its public relations arm, the California Adoption League. James Towsell died on March 14, 1965, at the age of 51; that summer, Elsie took out permits for a kitchen remodeling at 515 as well for other interior alterations. She and James T. Townsell Jr., born in 1951, and the Townsells' daughter, Liz, born in 1953—she was attending Marlborough—remained at 515 South Hudson into the 1970s, putting it on the market in the late summer of 1972; this being the post–Watts Rebellion and Manson murders period, the nadir of Hancock Park's appeal, it took awhile for the house to sell. Once it did, Elsie Townsell moved to San Francisco
  • The owner of 515 South Hudson after the departure of Elsie Townsell is unclear; the house was again on the market, which had rebounded dramatically, by the summer of 1984, priced at $720,000; this had come down to $675,000—$1,661,000 in 2019 dollars—by January 1985
  • By 1987, writer, editor, and volunteer Marlene Zweig was the owner of 515 South Hudson Avenue and remains so as of 2019


Illustrations: Private Collection; newspapers.com