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  • Built in 1924 on Lot 30 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: real estate developer John A. Vaughan as his own home
  • Architect credited on original building permit: Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle. Alexander D. Chisholm had recently formed a contracting, building, and real estate development company with William H. Fortine and Evan L. Meikle. Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle employed staff designers and built a number residences in Los Angeles, either for specific clients or speculatively, during the 1920s, including at least seven in Hancock Park and others in nearby Windsor Square
  • On February 4, 1924, the Department of Buildings issued John A. Vaughan permits for an 11-room residence and a 1½-story, 20-by-40-foot garage at 615 Rimpau Boulevard
  • John Archibald Vaughan, who appears to have been known familiarly as Archie, had been a real estate operator in Los Angeles since arriving in the city in 1906. Born in Clinton, Louisiana, in 1879—he had a twin sister named Tennessee Drusilla—Vaughan worked as a railroad telegrapher before reaching California. Perhaps having met her on his way west, he married Bonnie Adele McLachlen in Los Angeles on March 20, 1907; the bride had moved to the city with her mother from her native El Paso after her parents divorced and her father committed suicide. Vaughan got his start with well-known real estate operator Edward D. Silent before striking out on his own. By the early 1910s his John A. Vaughan Company was becoming a major player as a sales agent for new high-end tracts that were being developed to extend westwardly the appeal of the West Adams district. His marketing of Wellington Square was well covered in the press; that subdivision sold well to middle- and upper-middle-class buyers but did not generally draw seriously affluent Old West Adamsites looking for new pastures, who were drawn by grander Wilshire Corridor developments such as Windsor Square and Fremont Place (both opned in 1911), and, before long, Hancock Park. Ambition, a slumping postwar economy—and perhaps even effects of lingering Spanish Flu—appear to have gotten the better of Vaughan by 1919, when on February 7 he filed for bankruptcy in U.S. District Court. Then as now a process less ignominious than pragmatic for hard-nosed businessmen, Vaughan relaunched after the dust settled, opening the John A. Vaughan Corporation within a few years to market new subdivisions out on Wilshire Boulevard in a nascent Westside, having, it seems, come to understand that the dominance of the Adams Corridor was definitely over


John Vaughan had his business ups and downs, but he knew how to relaunch bigger and better


  • By 1920, John and Bonnie Vaughan were renting a house at 725 South Berendo Street and had a daughter, Evelyn, born in 1908, and a son, Frederic, born in 1917. Mrs. Vaughan's sister Ruth McLachlen was living with them. Real estate was booming again as Los Angeles was more than doubling its population during the 1920s, Vaughan was newly flush and decided to move his family to Hancock Park. Even before the economy soured at the end of the decade, life in the new house at 625 Rimpau Boulevard began to darken. While driving north to Palo Alto on October 14, 1927, for the Stanford-U.S.C. game taking place the next day, Evelyn and two friends had a minor collision with another car south of Salinas that, police surmised, may have compromised the vehicle's brakes. Unable to slow down on a sharp curve some miles on, the car turned over. Her friends were thrown clear and escaped with only minor injuries; Evelyn died, her head crushed. She was 18. In lengthy coverage on October 15, the Times reported that, rather than any mechanical issue, "Failure to abide by her promise to her parents before embarking on the journey which resulted in her death is held, by her family, as the outstanding cause of the accident. According to a statement made at the home yesterday, Miss Vaughan promised she would not drive after nightfall and that she and her friend [sic] would spend Thursday night in Santa Maria."
  • Whatever the state of the Vaughans' marriage at the time of the death of their daughter is unclear, but the couple would be divorced within two years and 615 Rimpau Boulevard sold. Mrs. Vaughan and Fred moved to an apartment at The Hermoyne on Rossmore Avenue, as did Ruth McLachlen. The divorce does not seem to have been acrimonious; in June 1930, John, Bonnie, and Fred sailed to Hawaii on the Malolo for a two-week vacation. On January 3, 1934, the Post-Record reported that 49-year-old Bonnie Vaughan died of "an apoplexy stroke" at Good Samaritan Hospital the day before. "Mrs. Vaughan was the divorced wife of John A. Vaughan, local real estate broker"; her obituary in the Times on the 4th suggests, oddly, that John A. Vaughan was still her husband, which, perhaps, was his wish. Her remains were placed in a Forest Lawn mausoleum with those of Evelyn—and after he died at the age of 56 on February 12, 1936, John Vaughan's joined theirs
  • Meanwhile, the house at 615 Rimpau Boulevard was sold by Vaughan to Maine-born Horace Lowell Averill, another real estate operator. Averill, his Norwegian-born wife Hilda, 13-year-old Mabel, and 9-year-old Lorraine are noted at 615 Rimpau in the 1930 Federal census, which indicates that the house was now owned by them and valued at $75,000. Curiously, ownership of the property appears to have reverted to John A. Vaughan by 1935, despite another of his bankruptcies having been reported by the Los Angeles Record on June 16, 1932. Could it nevertheless have been a repossession by Vaughan? John and Fred Vaughan are listed at 615 in the 1935 city directory, with the Averills having moved on to briefly rent 515 South Windsor Boulevard in Windsor Square. (Horace Averill would died on July 9, 1937.) Interestingly, Vaughan's ex sister-in-law Ruth McLachlen is listed at 615 Rimpau in directories from 1935 to 1938


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on June 20, 1937


  • 615 Rimpau Boulevard was sold in the early summer of 1937. Large display advertisements appeared in the Times in June for an auction to be held at 615 Rimpau on the 22nd to dispose of "exquisite furniture, oriental rugs, art objects, draperies, sterling silver, etc." The ads carried a boxed notice that "The furnishings in this magnificent home must be sold to close the estate of a very prominent person whose name is being withheld by order of the guardian of the heir. Many of these furnishings were purchased by him on his many trips to Europe." Sounding more like adspeak to enhance the glamour of the offerings, the "very prominent person" appears to be John Vaughan—who was hardly prominent, socially or otherwise—and the heir, Frederic. (Other than the 1930 trip to Hawaii and a jaunt to Mexico in 1929, there is no indication that the Vaughans traveled to Europe even once.) It seems that orphaned Freddy was securing his future not only with the sale of 615 Rimpau and its furnishings but through marriage at the age of 19 to an heiress to a Mexican brewery fortune. Nine days before the auction at 615, he married Mary Consuelo Hoeffer of Beverly Hills and Hermosillo, who'd just turned 20. They sailed for Honolulu on the Lurline on June 12. (The Vaughans would have four children, their eldest named Bonnie, and remained married for over 60 years before his death at 80 on February 23, 1998. Mary Vaughan died two months later on April 26, 1998, a few weeks shy of her 81st birthday)
  • Purchasing 615 Rimpau Boulevard from the estate of John Vaughan was cosmetics wholesaler Louis Conrad. Conrad, his wife, née Ruth Edelman, their son Gerald, 20, and daughter Florence, 16, were in residence at 615 by August 1937. The Conrads were much involved in Jewish causes, with she hosting events for the Society for Jewish Culture and for Hadassah at 615 over the years. Louis Conrad co-founded Sales Builders Inc. in 1926 as marketers and wholesale distributors of Max Factor Cosmetics; when ground was broken on Olympic Boulevard downtown for a new Sales Builders plant in September 1931, young Hollywood in the form of Irene Dunne, Joan Blondell, Loretta Young, and Young's sister Sally Blane were reportedly on hand, all presumably slathered in Max Factor Pan-Cake. Conrad was president of the firm when he died at Cedars of Lebanon after a brief illness on December 8, 1939, after barely two years at 615 Rimpau. He was 62. The house was on the market in the spring of 1940, advertised in the Times as being part of a trustee's sale, though Ruth Conrad would be staying. The Westside Jewish Community Center, opened on Olympic Boulevard in 1950, still houses the Louis Conrad Memorial Library; Mrs. Conrad remained at 615 until selling by 1955 and moving to a Westwood apartment


Hancock Parker Ray Teal as Bonanza's Sheriff Roy Coffee


  • Prolific character actor Ray Teal was well established in Hollywood by the time he and his wife moved to 615 Rimpau Boulevard in 1955, known to audiences for his appearances in dozens of films including The Best Years of Our Lives, Ace in the Hole, and The Desperate Hours and for his frequent appearances on the small screen including roles in Cheyenne, Maverick, and Lassie. Teal would appear in more than 250 movies and in as many as 90 television episodes during a 37-year career. He would become best-known as Sheriff Roy Coffee on Bonanza, appearing from 1960 to 1972. Other film appearances included Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, and Chisum. Born in Grand Rapids on January 12, 1902, he worked his way through U.C.L.A. as a saxophonist and bandleader before turning to acting. Raymond Elgin Teal married Louise Laraway in Grand Rapids in 1926 and moved to San Francisco, he apparently traveling for work before settling in Hollywood. The Teals appear to have had no children and to have remained at 615 Rimpau Boulevard until his death in Santa Monica on April 2, 1976. Some sources indicate that Louise Teal may have retained ownership of 615 into the 1990s. She died in 1998
  • In 1968, Ray Teal's Bonanza co-star Dan Blocker moved to 555 Muirfield Road, just around the corner from 615 Rimpau
  • Owners in recent decades appear to have made minimal changes to the property at 615 Rimpau Boulevard, second-floor room alterations and a new swimming pool being the only major updates 



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