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  • Built in 1927 on Lot 206 in Tract 6388
  • Original commissioner: Rae Morlan Isaacs
  • Designer: Rae Morlan Isaacs
  • On February 10, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued Rae Morlan Isaacs permits for a two-story, 11-room residence and a one-story, 20-by-34-foot garage at 616 South Hudson Avenue. On both forms, the printed word "Architect" on lines requesting a name has been written over with the word "Designer," indicating that Isaacs was not a board-certified architect
  • Rae Morlan Isaacs was the wife of Harry Hopper Isaacs, a petroleum engineer. The couple had married on February 6, 1925, he having divorced his first wife, with whom he had two children, and she her first husband, attorney Stanley Visel, with whom she had a son. Rae Visel's parents, Arthur and Margaret Morlan, built 227 South Windsor Boulevard in New Windsor Square in 1921, possibly with her input; on October 3, 1924, Rae M. Visel had been issued a permit to build 661 South June Street in Hancock Park, into which she and Harry Isaacs would move after its completion. The building permit for 661 South June indicates no one as architect but cites R. M. Visel as contractor; the Isaacses sold that house to attorney Glen Behymer before moving around the corner to 616 South Hudson Avenue in 1927
  • Harry Isaacs, who turned 50 a month before, died at 616 South Hudson Avenue on September 7, 1936, a month after he and Rae and his son John returned from a vacation in Manzanillo; the cause was acute gastritis. His brother Fred's wife Loretta, who lived at the Park Lane apartments on West Fourth Street—he also worked in the petroleum industry—died of pneumonia on April 19, 1937. Widow and widower married forthwith and he took up residence at 616 South Hudson
  • Rae Isaacs's father Arthur Morlan, who built 227 South Windsor Boulevard in 1921, went on to build 150 South Hudson Place in Hancock Park in 1928. On the building permit for that house, R. M. Isaacs is cited as architect and contractor; the building has heavy Churrigueresque detailing. As a designer Rae Isaacs was nothing if not fond of Spanish and Mediterranean architecture, having designed two of her parents' houses and two of her own along these lines
  • Life events took place rapidly in the Isaacs family; Arthur Morlan died at Good Samaritan on April 14, 1940. In an eventful few months, Rae Isaacs died on March 7, 1942, a few weeks after her 50th birthday. Interestingly, less than a month later, wasting no time after becoming a widow, Fred Isaacs married 31-year-old Miss Bernice Victoria Goebel in Phoenix on April 5, 1942. The newlyweds moved into the Los Altos Apartments on Wilshire Boulevard
  • 616 South Hudson became the property of Morlan Visel after the death of his mother. Visel and his wife Jeanne and their daughter, Bonnie Rae Visel, who had been born on February 21, 1941, moved in. Mrs. Visel's parents, William and Lucia Glenn, would be joining them
  • On February 29, 1944, Morlan Visel was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to replace the roof. On January 21, 1946, Visel was issued a permit for a 20-by-40-foot swimming pool on the property
  • Identified as an "entrepreneur" in the investment industry in the 1950 Federal census, Morlan Visel would be leaving 616 South Hudson with Jeanne and Bonnie Rae in 1952 and moving to Bel-Air; the Glenns moved to an apartment in Beverlywood. With the note "House Sold," a classified ad in the Times on September 28, 1952, offered furniture for sale at 616
  • Mickey Kaplan, who appears to have been a real estate investor, occupied 616 South Hudson Avenue for several years before the arrival of Nathan Movich from East Los Angeles
  • It is unclear as to how long Nathan Movich, an osteopath, his wife Jessie, and their daughters Annette and Felice Charlene lived at 616 South Hudson; the family was in residence at least into the 1960s, adding an elevator in 1962. Dr. Movich died at his Seal Beach home in March 1972. Jessie Movich died in 1978
  • Possibly still owned by the Moviches, 616 South Hudson Avenue was on the market in late 1971 asking $124,500. Ownership of the property during the 1970s is unclear; an estate sale at 616 was advertised in the Times in June 1983. The house appeared on the market again in the spring of 1998. Languishing for the next two years, the asking price of $2,200,000 was down to $1,649,000 by early 2000, when the house finally sold to its current owner. During the fall of 1998 and through the winter, ads appeared in the paper for a "Giant Book Sale" at 616—"a 40-year hardcover collection"


Illustration: Private Collection