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  • Built in 1929 on a parcel comprised of Lot 335 and the easterly 15 feet of Lot 319 in Tract 8320
  • Original commissioner: oil-industry engineer Nelson Kavanaugh Smith
  • Architect: Clarence J. Smale
  • On August 9, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued "N. K. Smith" a permit for a two-story, eight-room house under the address "189 South Hudson Avenue." The designation became "191" before Mr. Smith and his family moved in, which was in time for them to be enumerated at 191 in the Federal census taken in April 1930
  • It should be noted here that there is confusion in some quarters regarding the original commissioner and architect of 191 South Hudson, with some researchers concluding that the house was built in 1936 by Frederick M. Harden—who was in fact the second owner of the property—to the design of Harley G. Corwin. The permit pulled by Mr. Harden in 1936 for small Corwin-designed outbuilding on the property, a two-room, 16-by-19-foot structure, referred to on the document as a residence, has been taken in error as the original permit for the primary dwelling on Lot 335
  • East Texas natives Nelson K. Smith and Mary Manion married in April 1891 and had four children; of them Nelson Jr. and Garrett survived into adulthood. The Smiths divorced circa 1918 with he soon remarrying. The new Mrs. Smith was 16 years her husband's junior. Nelson and Louise Smith adopted two daughters they named Louise Bee and Nelsona Kay. It was the latter four who moved into the anomalous Art Deco 191 South Hudson Avenue. Their stay would be brief, however; Nelson K. Smith died in Los Angeles at the age of 63 on September 4, 1933. Louise sold 191 South Hudson the next year. She remarried in 1938
  • New Jersey–born Frederick Mabee Harden bought 191 South Hudson Avenue in 1934. On December 6 of that year the Department of Building and Safety issued Harden permits to add a child's playhouse and a pergola to the property. On December 30, 1936, Harden was issued a permit for the aforementioned two-room 16-by-19-foot auxiliary dwelling at 191; the permit for this carries Harley G. Corwin's name as architect. The contractor noted is Pacific System Homes, a leading local builder of small dwellings and prefabricated buildings




  • Frederick M. Harden was a gold-mine developer and civil engineer who had been living for many years in the Philippines. He married native Filipina Esperanza Perez in Manila in December 1917. Their son Hosea was born the following September, with their daughter Sarah arriving eight years later, both children being born in the Philippines. Fred made frequent business trips back to the States, apparently deciding by 1934 that he needed a residential base in Los Angeles. The Hardens' connection to 191 South Hudson would be interrupted by Pearl Harbor, although discord on the Hancock Park home front was developing by 1938. That year not only did the I.R.S. file a $280,665 tax lien against the Hardens, but, according to records of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, Fred and Esperanza separated. It is unclear as to exactly when a divorce decree might have been reached, but Mrs. Harden's suits against Fred would drag on for nearly 30 years. (A transcript of the typically numbing court record is here.) In short, proceedings were interrupted by Pearl Harbor, after which Esperanza and Sarah—known as Sally—were interned by the Japanese in the Santo Tomas prison camp in Manila. A classified advertisement in the Times of March 4, 1941, offered 191 South Hudson for sale—"Magnificent, different, superior construction"—though no price was mentioned. Fred's draft registration completed in April 1942 gives his address as an apartment in Hollywood. That month a classified ad in The Van Nuys News offered two 1936 Packards, a coupe and a sedan, for sale out of 191 South Hudson. Esperanza's court case resumed after she and Sally were released from internment in February 1945
  • With war looming on both the international and marital fronts, it seems that Fred Harden was unable to sell 191 South Hudson Avenue after placing it on the market in early 1941. On July 12, 1941, Esperanza Harden's attorney filed her complaint for an accounting of the conjugal properties against Fred and his attorney. The case was revived after V.J. Day; in November 1946, the Hardens' joint properties were placed in receivership. The court rendered judgment for Mrs. Harden on October 31, 1949, which may have cleared the way for the immediate sale of 191. Thus far in research no connection of the property to any other name has been found between the Hardens' tenancy and that of the next owners, who were in residence by the spring of 1950
  • The son of an eastern Long Island fisherman, Ralph Monroe Parsons had gone on to form an engineering partnership with John McCone (who later became head of the C.I.A.) and Stephen Bechtel Jr., grandson of Warren A. Bechtel, founder of the Bechtel Corporation, the giant engineering and construction firm. The partnership dissolved at the end of World War II, with Stephen Bechtel going on to join the Bechtel Corporation in 1948 and becoming the chief business rival to the Ralph M. Parsons Company, which was Parsons's postwar venture. According to the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, which he inaugurated in 1961 as the philanthropic arm of the Parsons company, the firm "built scores of major projects in more than 30 countries: oil and natural gas facilities, shipyards, power plants, irrigation and water development projects, processing plants, metal and mineral mines, airports, subway and rail lines, sewage systems, NASA facilities, and more." It appears that Parsons and his East Hampton–born wife, née Ruth Bennett, lived in rented accommodations in the Wilshire District prior to buying 191 South Hudson. By that time the Parsons Company was firmly established as a leader in its field
  • Ralph and Ruth Parsons had been married in Amagansett, Long Island, in October 1917. They had no children. After settling into 191 South Hudson Avenue in 1950, the couple made a series of improvements to the property. On July 7, 1953, they were issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add a backyard lanai; a permit issued on April 22, 1954, authorized an addition to the west end of the garage wing of the house to increase capacity from three to four cars. A permit for an addition to a storage building on the property was issued on June 7, 1955, and one for a new 10-by-11-foot utility and garden house on January 2, 1957. A permit to install central air conditioning was pulled on April 22, 1958. The Parsonses were still living at 191 South Hudson Avenue when Ruth died in Los Angeles on January 22, 1962, a month shy of her 66th birthday
  • Ralph Parsons would be remaining at 191 South Hudson Avenue after the death of his wife of 44 years. On July 7, 1966, a permit with "Ralph M. Parsons Inc." cited as owner was issued authorizing a kitchen and bath remodeling, which might have helped woo the next Mrs. Parsons. On December 28, 1970, Ralph, now 74, married 62-year-old former stage and  screen actress Kathryn Crawford. Born Kathryn Crawford Moran, early in her career sometimes billed as Kitty Moran, she was featured in Cole Porter's Broadway musical The New Yorkers in 1930, leading to her primary claim to fame as the original singer of the play's classic "Love for Sale." (The song's lyrics led to it being banned from radio.) Married twice before, Miss Crawford had become an interior decorator by the time she married Ralph Parsons. It seems that after the wedding the couple decided to move to her house in San Marino, where he died at the age of 78 on December 20, 1974
  • Ralph Parsons sold 191 South Hudson Avenue to investment banker William G. Haddad, whose family has now owned the house for over 50 years


Illustrations: Private Collection; Historic American Buildings Survey