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  • Built in 1930 on Lot 44 in Tract 3668
  • Original commissioner: businessman William George Heberling
  • Architect: Henry J. Knauer
  • On January 22, 1930, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits to W. G. Heberling for a two-story, 10-room residence and a 1½-story, 20-by-28-foot garage. The irregular intersection of Muirfield Road and Rossmore Avenue appears to have presented somewhat of a problem when a decision needed to be made as to the house's address; on both of these initial permits, the number "201" is overwritten with "150." On January 26, 1930, a small item in the Times reported that "Plans have been prepared by Architects Jenry J. Knauer and John R. King, who will build a $27,700 residence at 201 Muirfield Road, for W. G. Heberling." As can be seen in the early view just below, the house was designed with footpaths to its entrance porch from both the Rossmore sidewalk was well as from its Muirfield-adjacent driveway. (The corner driveway entrance lasted until late 2013)


The original configuration of 150 Muirfield Road had its pedestrian entrance leading from Rossmore
Avenue and its easterly driveway entrance leading in from the corner. After Rossmore became
a major north-south traffic artery, the property was closed off here with high hedges.


  • William Heberling had been in the oil business, living in Venezuela in the early 1920s, before returning to marry Georgia Suber Bartram, recently divorced from dentist Edward Bartram, in February 1923. The Bartrams had married in October 1905 and had three children, Lois Patricia, Barbara, and William; they lived on Vermont Avenue in a house built for them by her father, Moses K. Suber, in 1913. Heberling, who came into his marriage a 48-year-old bachelor, was apparently ready to settle down, moving with his ready-made family into a comfortable, recently-built house at 311 South Arden Boulevard in Windsor Square; he became associated with the EMSCO Derrick and Equipment Company, part of the booming multifaceted EMSCO industrial and aviation supplies conglomerate. The Heberlings stayed on Arden Boulevard until 1930, when they moved to the new house at 150 Muirfield Road
  • Georgia Heberling's father, Indiana-born Moses Kelly Suber, had arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1890s to invest in real estate and as such was one of those men considered a pioneer of the city even as early as his death at 84 on March 27, 1928. He died in the house he and his wife Alta had built in early 1894 at 1015 Orange Street, which became 1015 Wilshire Boulevard 30 years later and would remain in the family for decades
  • Lois and Barbara Bartram, if not William, took their stepfather's surname after he married their mother. A large picture of Lois appeared in the Times on July 11, 1926, after the Heberlings gave her a dance; on July 24, 1932, another big picture in the Times accompanied the announcement of her engagement to William Donaldson. On Valentine's Day 1933, the paper reported details of the wedding to take place that evening at All Saints' Episcopal in Beverly Hills, as it did her educational accomplishments—she was a graduate of Marlborough and U.C.L.A. Little information was given about the groom, though he was apparently studying law at U.S.C. The marriage was duly recorded by county authorities, but a divorce came in short order. An item in the Times on June 4, 1933, explained the failure of the union: "Testimony that on the day following the marriage of William Donaldson, University of Southern California law student, to Miss Lois B. Heberling of 150 Muirfield Road, on February 14, last, the bridegroom appeared at the home of his wife's parents and demanded they establish a trust fund which would yield him a monthly income of $250, aided Mrs. Donaldson in winning a decree of divorce.... The bride returned to the home of her parents following his demand, it was testified. Donaldson then sued for divorce and his wife replied with a cross-complaint." Charming man. Society scribes played right along with the bride's return to maidenhood, reporting in the Times in October 1934 that Miss Lois Heberling was accompanying her grandmother Suber on a trip to Chicago to see the Century of Progress exhibition, closing at the end of that month. Another engagement for Miss Lois Heberling, now 31, was announced in the paper on May 25, 1938, with the notation that she "belongs to one of the pioneer families of Los Angeles," families in the city for less than 50 years then apparently qualifying as pioneers. Her marriage to neuropsychiatrist Dr. Cullen Ward Irish took place at 150 Muirfield Road on June 2, with yet another large picture of her appearing in the Times on June 16
  • In the meantime, Mrs. Heberling's son William Ellsworth Bartram married Rubye Collins of Dallas on June 28, 1936, the reception if not the ceremony taking place at 150 Muirfield Road. On August 12 of that year Barbara Heberling—whose birth name was Burnell Abbott Bartram—married William Otto Pushman, a golf instructor who the year before had been acquitted on "statutory charges" after he and two others allegedy forced a 25-year-old Hollywood waitress to "leap from her window in a nude condition." The couple had two children by 1940, but the marriage does not seem to have survived the war. On February 21, 1937, Georgia Heberling threw a surprise 87th birthday party for her mother at 150 Muirfield. Mrs. Suber was once again described in press coverage as a "pioneer resident" of Los Angeles
  • Alta Suber died at 1015 Wilshire Boulevard on May 5, 1939. She was living there with her daughter and son-in-law, Nellie and Fred McHenry. Interestingly, Georgia Heberling was issued a permit on September 15, 1947, to have her parents' 1894 house lifted up, pushed back on its lot, and turned to face St. Paul Avenue, with consoderable alterations including a commercial addition added to the new street façade. Mrs. Heberling hired the architect of 150 Muirfield Road, Henry J. Knauer, to design these changes. In the early '50s, the Bartrams were living in the building, which has since been demolished
  • Enumerated in the 1950 census at 150 Muirfield Road were William and Georgia Heberling, the Irishes, and Barbara Pushman and her two children. The Heberlings and Irishes were still listed at 150 in the 1965 Los Angeles city directory; William died that year on August 11 at the age of 91. Dr. Irish died at 77 on July 23, 1967, Georgia Heberling 34 days later
  • While no listing for 150 Muirfield Road appeared in city directories after the deaths of Mrs. Heberling and Dr. Irish, Lois Irish was still listed as living at 150 in the 1973 Southwest Blue Book. It is unclear as to how long the extended Heberling family was gone from 150 when Lois Irish died at 84 on April 8, 1991, at which time she was living in La Crescenta
  • A classified advertisement offering 150 Muirfield Road for sale, asking $895,000, appeared in the Times on April 10, 1994; by May 22, the price had risen to $925,000
  • By 1993, Kamra Zafar was the owner cited on a permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety to add a 21-by-30-foot swimming pool to the property at 150 Muirfield Road
  • In September 2011 an owner succeeding Kamran Zafar sold the house to Marlborough School for $3,250,000; it was refurbished for use as the head of school's residence. The 1993 pool was replaced with a lap pool in 2013. Work also began that year to remove the 83-year-old corner driveway entrance to the property; the yard was fully enclosed with a brick retaining wall, metal fencing, and the beginnings of a new version of the high manicured hedges that had been in place before to shield the house from the high volume of traffic along Rossmore Avenue


The corner driveway entrance of 150 Muirfield Road has since been removed and fully hedged off



Illustrations: Private Collection; USCDL