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  • Built in 1925 on Lot 42 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: Mrs. Ernest Eloy Duque
  • Architect: Lester Hudson Hibbard of the firm Stanton, Reed & Hibbard (Forrest Q. Stanton and Harold E. Reed), which is indicated as contractor on the original building permits
  • On January 2, 1925, the Department of Buildings issued Mrs. Duque a permit for a 15-room residence at 367 Rimpau Boulevard to be constructed of Tylite hollow concrete building blocks; a permit superseding this was issued to Mrs. Duque on January 22, the number of rooms now at 16 and the construction described as being of "cement tile and concrete," the trade name Tylite no longer being specified. On January 9, 1925, Mrs. Duque was issued a permit for a one story, 22-by-38-foot garage at 367 Rimpau
  • Louise Fleming Duque was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Fleming, co-founder and secretary and general manager of the California Portland Cement Company. She had married Ernest Eloy Duque in the drawing room of her parents' rented house at 2525 Wilshire Boulevard on June 22, 1915, after which he went to work for his father-in-law; Dorothy Louise Duque arrived promptly on St. Patrick's Day of the next year. Ernest Duque was one of nine children of Havana-born banker Thomas Duque, who'd arrived in Los Angeles in 1888. Thomas Fleming died in February 1924, perhaps leaving his daughter the funds to commission 367 Rimpau Boulevard, to be constructed, naturally, of cement; Fleming's titles at California Portland Cement passed to Ernest Duque. The Duques would be moving to Hancock Park from 409 South Hobart Boulevard
  • On May 19, 1927, Louise Duque was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety to add 16-by-18-foot sleeping porch on the second floor; Lester H. Hibbard was called on to design it. On November 29, 1930, the Duques were issued a permit to add a sunroom with a sleeping porch above it; indicated on the permit as designer is Hibbard, Gerity & Kerton, the firm in which Lester Hibbard now practiced alongside H. Scott Gerity and Henry A. Kerton. The Duques dropped the firm for their next project, instead choosing Albert McNeal Swasey. (Known as McNeal Swasey, his residential projects appear to have been rare although he did design 434 Rimpau Boulevard a block south of 367. He was the son of St. Louis architect W. Albert Swasey; after Yale, he came west to serve architect Myron Hunt as project manager on the Ambassador Hotel, which opened on January 1, 1921.) On September 27, 1935, Swasey pulled a permit to enlarge the sunroom—seen below in what is apparently its original incarnation—and to construct yet another sleeping porch, which involved rearranging some bedrooms. On July 28, 1937, Swasey was issued a permit to enlarge the garage at 367 Rimpau, the original section, apparently being turned into staff quarters and a laundry room onto which was build new garage space. Per the permit, the new building's proximity to the north line of the property required a zoning variance
  • Duque family members, near and extended, lived in Hancock Park in close proximity to 367. Ernest's next-eldest brother, attorney Gabriel C. Duque, had Paul Revere Williams design 340 North Las Palmas Avenue in 1932; Gabriel's mother-in-law, Josephine McAlister, had built 644 Rimpau Boulevard in 1924; her daughter Josie, married to banker Thomas J. Brant, lived at 175 North McCadden Place. Louise Duque's sister Margaret was married to attorney Asa V. Call, who had represented California Portland Cement before becoming became chairman of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company; the Calls built 500 South Hudson Avenue in 1925, having had Lester Hibbard design it
  • Ernest and Louise Duque had five childen, a son, Ernest Jr., and four daughters. Dorothy Duque married Richard Angus Grant in Montecito on January 21, 1939, with a reception afterward at the Duques' Rancho Bendito there; Patty Duque married Dr. Richard Dillon at St. Brendan's on April 18, 1942, with a reception following at 367 Rimpau Boulevard. Further binding the family ties noted above, Louise Therese Duque married Thomas J. Brant Jr. on May 14, 1949. Their small ceremony was held in the private chapel of Archbishop J. Francis A. McIntyre's residence at 100 Fremont Place, with a reception following at 367 Rimpau. The Times made much of the joining of two old familes and reported that the groom's brother and best man, Jim, "read a cable from the Pope extending apostolic blessings to the young couple and also a telegram from Archbishop McIntyre, who was out of town and unable to be present." Margaret Duque married W. Baird Marble Jr. at the Cathedral Chapel on October 8, 1955, with Cardinal McIntyre himself in attendance along with the Asa Calls and Missy and Otis Chandler—she being a first cousin of Tom Brant. The Duques threw a last large reception at 367 after the ceremony


The four Duque sisters as seen at the Valley Hunt Club, Pasadena; the Times, September 19, 1955.
With tight connections to the Chandlers, the Duques were assured of good coverage.


  • With all of their daughters married—their son seems never to have found a wife—Ernest and Louise Duque decided to leave 367 Rimpau Boulevard. Apparently attracted to the work of Paul Williams, which they'd have known first-hand from his design on McCadden Place for his brother Gabriel, they would be moving to 68 Fremont Place, which a very young Williams had designed in 1923. (In an unusual turn of architectural events, the Duques recalled Williams in 1957 to update his 68 Fremont Place with a makeover that included features that had become part of his sleek signature style by the 1950s, such as a wrought-iron portico)
  • After the Duques completed their renovation of 68 Fremont Place—and, it appears, their brief rental of 367 Rimpau Boulevard to the Leroy H. Stantons, listed there in the 1958 Southwest Blue Book and apparently unrelated to architect Forrest Q. Stanton mentioned above—the house was sold to the University of Southern California for use as a residence for its president. On March 6, 1959, a permit was issued to U.S.C. by the Department of Building and Safety for unspecified interior alterations. It might seem odd today that the school would not have chosen to occupy a presidential residence in the West Adams district, close to if not on campus, but 367 Rimpau would have been been selected as much as a venue for entertaining alumni—potential donors—as much as for housing its president. In 1958, the Santa Monica Freeway was being rammed west through the city. For whatever other good the road may have done for the city's manifest destiny, it also, for at least the next 50 years, further marginalized West Adams, which with the rise of such subdivisions as Hancock Park had begun to lose its appeal to deep pockets in the early 1920s. U.S.C.'s rich alumni had long since left West Adams and, except for football games, may have rarely visited the campus, now to be even more remote behind the freeway wall. Visiting a U.S.C. outpost in a less embattled district closer to home would have been a much more appealing prospect and might have seemed a more agreeable place to be shaken down


Dr. Norman H. Topping


  • Norman H. Topping, who'd received his M.D. from U.S.C. in 1936, was inaugurated as the university's seventh president on October 23, 1958. He and his wife Helen and their daughter Linda moved into 367 Rimpau Boulevard, their son Brian remaining in Philadelphia, where Dr. Topping had served as vice-president of Penn since 1952. The Toppings remained at 367 throught the 1960s; he was appointed Chancellor of U.S.C. by its Board of Trustees in 1970. Topping apparently put 367 Rimpau to good fund-raising use during his presidential tenure; when he died in 1997, the then-current 10th president of the university, Steven B. Sample—no slouch himself when it came to the school's progress during his tenure from 1991 to 2010—said he thought of Norman Topping as the "father of the modern U.S.C." (More on Dr. Topping and his accomplishments is here.) Helen Topping was more than a mere hostess at U.S.C. functions at 367 Rimpau Boulevard; her interest in architecture and the fine arts resulted in the establishment of the Helen Topping Book Fund endowment in 1982, its intention being to support U.S.C. students and the school's library in perpetuity
  • In late 1973, 367 Rimpau Boulevard—touted as "one of Hancock Park's finest"—was on the market asking $185,000. The following March, it was still being offered for the same price, now to "those who can afford the best"
  • By 1973 and certainly by 1993, Sheldon W. Urlik, proprietor of an electrical-signage supply business and noted collector of classical and flamenco guitars, was in residence at 367 Rimpau Boulevard. He had lived previously at 608 South Highland Avenue in Hancock Park. During his tenure, Urlik carried out various interior remodelings and added a swimming pool to 367. A subsequent owner has performed his own interior alterations and replaced the roof


The sunroom of 367 Rimpau Boulevard as originally configured; information provided with the image
credits Lester Hibbard's firm as the designer. It is unclear as to how much of this version of
of the room was altered in its subsequent enlargement by McNeal Swasey in 1935.



Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; USCDL