PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1924 on Lot 1 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: retired businessman Antonio Dell'Acqua
  • Builder and designer: Frank E. Hartigan, who had begun building large houses in West Adams Heights, the Country Club District, and in the Wilshire District as well as in Pasadena while he was still manager of Charles and Earle Anthony's Western Motor Car Company. Hartigan maintained his interest in the automobile business even as his residential design and contracting operation took off by the 1910s. His big, airy, well-built Craftsman houses were very popular; though apparently an untrained architect, he claimed to design them himself and to personally supervise "every detail of their construction." "A Hartigan House Is a Guarantee of Excellence" became his slogan. On May 26, 1917, the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Hartigan in a report on housing in Southern California: "House building is a fine art, more so than dressmaking," he said. "The Paris modiste can throw away the gown that does not come out to suit the customer, but the house cannot be so disposed of." Hartigan became president of the Master Builders of Los Angeles trade group. As the fashion for the Craftsman style soared and then quickly faded and construction stalled as World War I loomed, Hartigan concentrated on wheels for several years, selling second-hand cars on Main Street. He began building "Hartigan Houses" again in late 1920, his architecture styles now having evolved. By 1924 these included an imposing Italianate mansion for Antonio Dell'Acqua
  • On January 18, 1924, the Department of Buildings issued Antonio Dell'Acqua a permit for a 10-room house and a one-story, 20-by-28-foot garage at 304 Rimpau Boulevard
  • Born in Lombardy in 1866, Antonio Dell'Acqua had arrived in Los Angeles by the early 1890s, opening a saloon on Main Street. While he is described variously as a saloonkeeper and liquor dealer, he appears to have made his fortune by investing in the local wine industry alongside vintner Secundo Guasti in the Italian Vineyard Company. Guasti had built his own imposing Italianate pile at 3500 West Adams Boulevard in 1910; Guasti's and Dell'Acqua's choices of neighborhoods in which to build their houses demonstrate the shift of the preference of the affluent from the West Adams District to the new suburbs opening out along Wilshire Boulevard


Antonio Dell'Acqua


  • Antonio Dell'Acqua was 55 when he married Italian-born Anita Pauline Ciocca in Los Angeles in the spring of 1921; she was just turning 31. Antonio was still running his bar—and living above it—as late as 1917, but it seems that his ship had come in by then; it was time to settle down. After they married the Dell'Acquas occupied a recently built house at 841 South Norton Avenue while formulating plans for a proper Italianate monument to success in Hancock Park. Antonio Dell'Acqua Jr. was born on February 17, 1922; Gloria Anita Dell'Acqua, who became known as Dolly, would come along on June 8, 1927. The Dell'Acquas acquired property in North Hollywood in the vicinity of Moorpark Street, aparently as a weekend retreat, though Antonio Jr. would later describe it as a 60-acre farm. The family retained it for some years before developing it as the Valley suburbanized. Antonio Jr. attended Los Angeles High School, with Dolly matricualting at Hollywood High. Life at 304 Rimpau Boulevard was interrupted by the death of Antonio Sr. on March 5, 1932, at the age of 66; a funeral was held at 304 on March 9. While Anita appears to have spent much of her time on Moorpark Street, the family would only be letting go of 304 Rimpau in 1986 after owning it for 62 years   
  • On September 9, 1934, the Times reported a burglary: "Smashing through a rear door while members of the family were absent, a burglar ransacked the home of Mrs. A. Del'Acqua [sic] at 304 South Rimpau Boulevard of furs, jewelry and clothing valued at $3900 late Friday night, according to a report to police yesterday morning."
  • On October 24, 1952, the Department of Building and Safety issued Anita Dell'Acqua a permit to extend the den at the rear center of the house back 12 feet, covering a former patio. On February 20, 1953, Mrs. Dell'Acqua was issued a permit for termite remediation; on May 31, 1968, she was issued a permit to sandblast the exterior of 304 Rimpau
  • Anita Dell'Acqua died at 304 Rimpau Boulevard at the age of 75 on June 25, 1965
  • As of this writing, the family of attorney and real estate developer Ronald D. Aubert has owned 304 Rimpau Boulevard for over 30 years. The house is now well-protected by vegetation from its busy corner but appears to be well preserved, much as Frank Hartigan designed it and the Dell'Acquas maintained it