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  • Built in 1927 on a parcel comprised of Lot 43 and the southerly 50 feet of Lot 44 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: attorney Thomas Caldwell Ridgway
  • Architect: Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle (Alexander D. Chisholm, William H. Fortine and Evan L. Meikle). The firm, as did similar organizations, employed draftsmen to execute designs or subcontracted them out to independent architects
  • On August 3, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued Thomas C. Ridgway a permit for a 12-room residence with an attached garage at 355 Rimpau Boulevard; the integration of house and garage was a coming innovation, the two usually having been kept separate on a lot when hay and then gasoline in outbuildings posed a fire hazard. The permit for 355 carried the architects' promise that "All points of contact between residence and garage [will be] fireproofed. No openings."
  • The Ridgways' house was actually part of a two-dwelling project with Mrs. Ridgway's parents, Edwin and Kate Rowley, who began building 335 Rimpau Boulevard next door to the north of 355 two months after work on that house began; Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle were the designers and contractors for 335 as well as 355
  • Thomas Ridgway was born in Shawneetown in southern Illinois on October 21, 1878 (or October 21, 1875, according to his sworn application for a passport in 1903). After receiving his law degree from Columbian College—today known as George Washington University—Ridgway set up a practice in Hilo, Hawaii, where he remained until settling in Los Angeles in 1905. On June 2, 1910, Ridgway married Grace Rowley, the daughter of real estate investor Edwin S. Rowley. The wedding was featured prominently in the Times, which noted that "more than 10,000 rosebuds were used to decorate the smart and beautiful wedding...in Immanuel Presbyterian Church." Grace was born in 1883 in Canton in Dakota Territory—today Canton is in South Dakota—where her father was then a loan broker. Although the Times noted in its wedding coverage that "among the wedding gifts to the young people is a new home, presented by the bride's parents," the Ridgways in fact remained living in her parents' house at 2621 Menlo Avenue until the extended family moved into their adjacent houses on Rimpau Boulevard 18 years later. The Ridgways' three children, Kate, Edwin, and Thomas, were born in 1911, 1915, and 1920, respectively
  • Edwin Rowley died at 335 Rimpau Boulevard on November 26, 1934, age 77. His son-in-law died at St. Vincent's Hospital on August 11, 1938, from complications following an appendectomy. Mother and daughter widows Kate Rowley and Grace Ridgway would remain in their commodious adjacent residences for the rest of their lives; Mrs. Rowley was at 335 until her death at nearly 98 in March 1963, Mrs. Ridgway at 355 until hers at nearly 102 on October 29, 1985
  • The Ridgways' daughter Kate Rowley Ridgway was married in the garden of 355 Rimpau Boulevard on September 3, 1937. Her groom was stockbroker and Stanford classmate Luppe Hodgdon Luppen, who'd grown up in Sacramento. After honeymooning in Hawaii, the Luppens settled into a house they'd bought at 420 North McCadden Place in Hancock Park
  • Edwin Rowley Ridgway, apparently a lifelong bachelor not straying far from his childhood home, had Paul Revere Williams design 232 Rimpau Boulevard for himself, which was completed in 1966
  • Available Department of Building and Safety records indicate that 355 Rimpau Boulevard remained as it was built from 1927 until after the death of Grace Ridgway in the fall of 1985
  • Owners of 355 Rimpau Boulevard after the departure of the Ridgways were J. Macklin Butler and his wife née Veneita Slinger, who had had come to Los Angeles in 1978 from Southern Illinois—as had the Ridgways—where he'd been a Chevrolet salesman. The Butlers' son, Jeffrey, who appears to have bought the house for his parents, had gone on to Los Angeles from tiny Chistopher, southeast of St. Louis, to found in 1968 the East/West Network, publishers of inflight and hotel magazines such as Pan Am's Clipper. In March 1979 Time magazine described Jeffrey Butler's success: "A onetime Pacific Southwest Airlines public relations director, Butler made a previous contribution to aviation history by outfitting PSA stewardesses in tangerine-colored hot pants. When PSA balked at his plan to put out an in-flight magazine, he formed East/West Network...a total of 10 million passengers read the magazines each month." Butler and his wife Erin became high-fliers themselves, often noted in the breathless column of social diarist Jody Jacobs for their partygiving and -going. Macklin and Veneita got into the "We're not in Christopher anymore" spirit themselves, their parties at 355 Rimpau noted by social scribes in the Times. Macklin Butler appeared on the mastheads of East/West's magazines as the company's vice chairman—Jeffrey was chairman and C.E.O.—while Veneita came into her own as a board member of the Virginia Robinson Gardens in Beverly Hills
  • Jeffrey Bulter's name appears as owner on permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety on November 3, 1978, for a barbecue, cabana, and 15-by-30-foot pool at 355 Rimpau Boulevard
  • Owners since the departure of the Butlers have carried out various remodelings and made additions at 355 Rimpau and have replaced the 1978 swimming pool with a larger one



Illustration: Private Collection