PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1924 on Lot 22 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: Josephine Withers McAlister
  • Architect: None is indicated on the original building permit. Noted as contractor on the document is "Bennett & Waugh." Tyler Bennett was a local builder, while his sometime partner was Edward A. Waugh, who during the early 1920s moved from firm to firm, among them the Milwaukee Building Company and Meyer & Holler, organizations which typically employed in-house and often uncredited architects. These two organizations were builders of many large residences in Hancock Park and Windsor Square
  • On August 11, 1924, a permit was issued to Josephine McAlister by the Department of Buildings for a 10-room residence and attached garage at 644 Rimpau Boulevard
  • Josephine McAlister was the widow of James William McAlister; they had come to California from St. Joseph, Missouri, with their four children in 1902. McAlister was retiring from a banking career that had permitted him to build an imposing (and still-standing) Richardsonian Romanesque house in St. Joseph in 1890; settling in Los Angeles, he bought a recently built house at the southeast corner of Sixth and Bonnie Brae streets in Westlake from Caroline Bumiller Hickey in February 1903. (The bumptious Mrs. Hickey owned considerable property in the city and was notorious for her tussles with her husband over it and their children, often involving litigation well-covered in the press; he would successfully divorce her for desertion in 1905)


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on May 26, 1923: Josephine McAlister was leaving a close-in
neighborhood that had been among the most exclusive in the city just 20 years before;
the convenience of the automobile and the rapid development of wholly new
districts such as Windsor Square (opened 1911) and Hancock Park
(opened late 1919) rendered Westlake déclassé by the
the early 1920s. Demolished in 1929, 1824
West Sixth Street was replaced
by a drive-in market.
 

  • James and Josephine McAlister invested capital in Los Angeles real estate other than their residence; he would also involve himself in other pursuits including the distribution of automobiles. Interestingly, McAlister struck a man with his car on April 29, 1907, the victim's life being saved when he landed in the car's back seat after being thrown 10 feet in the air. McAlister died at 1824 West Sixth Street on January 6, 1920—the same day that enumerators of the 1920 Federal census marked him alive—following an illness of five months. He was 67. Josephine McAlister would remain on Sixth Street until shortly before moving into 644 Rimpau Boulevard, selling it in the spring of 1923 and renting 340 South Alexandria Avenue while the new house was being completed
  • The Times of August 17, 1927, reported the marriage Mrs. McAlister's younger daughter Mary to attorney Gabriel Carlos Duque the afternoon before at 644 Rimpau Boulevard. James McAlister Jr. gave his sister away; her sister Josie, who married Thomas J. Brant in 1923 and later lived at 175 North McCadden Place in Hancock Park, was matron of honor. Mary's brother Harold was still living with his mother at 644 Rimpau and would be as late as 1946, when he married a Mrs. Fern Smith and adopted her son Hobart. The newlyweds appear to have moved into 644, which may have not been the best idea
  • On November 21, 1934, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mrs. McAlister a permit for termite remediation at 644 Rimpau Boulevard
  • Still living at 644 Rimpau Boulevard, Josephine McAlister died on May 7, 1953, six weeks shy of her 90th birthday. Her gravestone is engraved with the birthdate of 1894; her obituary in the Times the next day cited an age of 87 and curiously omitted Harold's name, though what must have been a quick call to her daughter Josephine Brant's niece—Mrs. Otis Chandler—resulted in the large correction on May 9 headlined "Son Omitted in Obituary Story on Mrs. McAlister." Harold was a private investor who, like his mother and siblings, devoted a good deal of time and money to philanthropy; mentioned rather endlessly in newspaper social diaries, he certainly would not like to have been considered nonexistent. By 1950 he and Fern had bought a house just around the corner at 669 South Hudson Avenue, though being just a five-minute walk away from his mother may have caused undue anxiety in the breakaway household. The 1950 Federal census enumerated in April has Harold living not on Hudson but at 644 Rimpau, listed as head of household; the next line has Fern noted as his wife but with this information scored through and written over with his mother's information. The "M" indicating Harold's marital status is written over with "Sep" as in "separated." The handwriting had been on the wall all along, it seems, although Harold and Fern didn't divorce, she making good use of the house in Palm Springs for the time being. As it turned out, the McAlisters would stay together and retain 669 South Hudson for the rest of their lives
  • The McAlisters wasted no time in disposing of 644 Muirfield Road after the death of Josephine McAlister; by July 1953 it was being offered for sale, classifieds in the Times not specifying a figure but claiming that the "price is right"
  • Mr. and Mrs. George H. Nelsen were in possession of 644 Rimpau Boulevard by the spring of 1954, moving eastward from 900 Chantilly Road in Bel-Air. Their elder daughter Nancy Jeanne had married John L. Cook in August 1953. George, an insurance man, died on June 5, 1958, ten days shy of his 52nd birthday
  • Termites having come back to 644 Rimpau Boulevard, the Department of Building and Safety issued Helen Nelsen a permit on June 23, 1954, for treatment
  • Carole Lynne Nelsen was nine years younger than her sister; she and her mother were still living at 644 Rimpau Boulevard when she married U.S.C. law student Robert A. Kendall at St. Alban's Episcopal Church in Westwood on June 15, 1962. The reception was held at 644. The Kendalls moved in with her mother and were still listed in city directories there in 1969
  • It is unclear as to when Mrs. Nelsen and the Kendalls left 644 Rimpau Boulevard; there is no listing for 644 in either the 1973 or 1987 city directories though it may well have been occupied
  • 644 Rimpau Boulevard was advertised for sale in the Times in March 1988 for $1,225,000; it was on the market again in the fall of 1995 for just $895,000 despite the addition of a 50-foot lap pool in 1989 and foundation work in early 1995. By mid January 1996, the price had been reduced by $20,000, but there were apparently still no takers, the owner remaining until the early 2000s having been issued permits for replacement of the roof and a kitchen remodeling. The next owners did various removations and replaced the lap pool with a more conventional 19-by-44 pool
  • 644 Rimpau Boulevard sold for $5,080,000 on October 2, 2020, a 206% increase over its 1996 asking price adjusted for inflation



Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT