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238 South Hudson Avenue
- Built in 1929 on Lot 395 in Tract 8320
- Original commissioner: attorney William Martin Van Dyke
- Designer and contractor: Lincoln Mortgage Company
- On April 23, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued William M. Van Dyke a permit for a two-story, 10-room residence with attached garage at 238 South Hudson Avenue
- William Van Dyke's house was not the first residence slated for Lot 395 in Tract 8320. According to permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety on March 5, 1927, real estate developer Charles C. Albright intended to build his personal residence at 238 South Hudson Avenue. Designed by architect Lester G. Scherer, Albright's plans were transferred to a second site, one also overlooking the Wilshire Country Club fairway at 340 North June Street, where it stands today. Permits for the transferred project were issued on March 24, 1927, just three weeks after those authorizing it to be built at 238 South Hudson
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A rendering of the Van Dyke house appeared in the Los Angeles Times on March 31, 1929 |
- The Lincoln Mortage Company was formed in 1922 with civic-minded attorney and developer Orra E. Monnette as president. The firm's aim was to build "Fine Homes in Exclusive Communities" using "The Lincoln Plan" to design, build, and finance residences at "one all-inclusive price." As did other development companies, Lincoln Mortgage hired independently established architects for its designs. Two whose work was being built by Lincoln at the time of the erection of the Van Dyke house were H. Roy Kelley and Harrison Clarke, who had won first and second prizes, respectively, in the 1929 National Better Homes architectural competition. Either of these architects are the possible designers of 238 South Hudson, though any direct connection so far remains elusive. (Lincoln's extant model home completed in early 1928 at 709 Walden Drive in Beverly Hills was designed by Wallace Neff, though in general the firm itself was credited, even over such as a talent as Neff)
- William Van Dyke, born in Arcata in 1858 and described in a 1932 obituary as the son of one of the "earliest white settlers in California, Superior Court Judge Walter Van Dyke," had married Annie Cora Taylor in her native San Francisco on April 4, 1889. Their daughter Lillian was born in July 1891 just after the Van Dykes had moved into 222 West Adams Street, built two years before. Sons Walter and Douglas arrived in March 1893 and June 1894, respectively. Eventually joining the household were Van Dyke's widowed mother Rowena and his bachelor brother Henry, also an attorney, and unmarried sister Caroline. The Van Dyke family remained at 222 West Adams Street for over 30 years. William retired from his 31-year clerkship of the United States Circuit Court on December 31, 1917, after which he and Annie planned on traveling. The couple had been to Europe at least twice already and were issued passports to sail from San Francisco on September 2, 1922, embarking an extended trip to Japan, China, and Hong Kong. This appears to have been their last trip. After Annie Van Dyke died at 222 West Adams on December 19, 1923, William seems to become anxious to leave the old house and move away from its declining environs
- As the neighborhoods flanking linear and lengthy West Adams Street—upgraded to Boulevard status mid-decade—relinquished their places as Los Angeles's most fashionable through the 1920s, their big houses were seemingly one by one converted into small hotels, rooming houses, and, in the University Park neighborhood, fraternity houses. The Van Dyke house at 222 West Adams became lodging if a bit less genteel than that of the Hotel Darby two doors away, which had replaced the relocated Wesley Clark house at 234 West Adams Street in 1910
- By 1924 Van Dyke's mother and sister as well as his son Douglas had moved to 461 North Serrano Avenue, where Rowena died on January 6, 1925. The address seemed to be home base for William and Lillian as they embarked on a series of extended trips abroad, though while contemplating their next residential move they also rented 615 South Van Ness Avenue for a time. It was on his return from his last long trip that Van Dyke decided to build his new house at 238 South Hudson Avenue in Hancock Park, which had become the most favored Wilshire-corridor subdivision for affluent ex–West Adamsites
- William M. Van Dyke died at home in Los Angeles on May 3, 1932, less than three years after moving into 238 South Hudson Avenue. Lillian, the only family member living with William at the time of his death, left 238 not long after and moved into a small house at 506 South Bronson Avenue. On November 18, 1933, at the age of 42, Lillian Van Dyke married Dr. Frederick L. Glascock, a pediatrician, and moved to Beverly Hills
- Insurance agent John Wesley Yates, his wife Helen, and their teenage daughters Helen Dale and Mary Jane moved into 238 South Hudson Avenue just before the birth of John Wesley Yates Jr. on May 18, 1933. The Yates family would retain 238 for over 40 years
- On May 26, 1933, the Department of Building and Safety issued John Yates a permit to add a bay window to the breakfast room at 238 South Hudson. On April 7, 1937, Yates was issued a permit to extend the width of the garage six feet south; a permit issued to him on May 13 authorized the building of a back-yard barbeque pit and incinerator
- Helen Dale Yates and Mary Jane Yates would both marry Hancock Park men. On October 19, 1946, Helen Dale married Hugh Miller Kice Jr., who grew up at 533 Muirfield Road. The ceremony was held at Wilshire Methodist Church with a reception following at the Beach Club in Santa Monica. On September 6, 1947, also at Wilshire Methodist, Mary Jane married Donald Mead Tippett, whose parents lived at 131 South McCadden Place. The Times printed a sizable obituary after John Yates Sr. died at Good Samaritan Hospital on December 18, 1957, age 62. Helen Yates was still living at 238 South Hudson when it was put on the market in the fall of 1974, asking $195,000; the price had dropped $10,000 by mid January. The stagflationary '70s, compounded by the fear engendered over the past decade by the Watts Rebellion and the Manson murders, seriously depressed the real estate market of central Los Angeles neighborhoods even including lofty Hancock Park. Helen Yates died in July 1979. It is unclear as to whom may have occupied 238 South Hudson between the departure of Mrs. Yates and 1982
- Having lived previously at 520 South Lucerne Boulevard in Windsor Square, where they lived from 1975 to 1982, attorney John R. Browning and his wife, née Karen Koto, have been in residence at 238 South Hudson for decades as of 2019
Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT