PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1924 on Lot 12 in Tract 5640
  • Original commissioner: department-store executive Arthur Strasburger
  • Architect and contractor: Jack Olerich
  • On August 25, 1924, the Department of Buildings issued Arthur Strasburger permits for a 10-room residence and a one-stroy, 25-by-20-foot garage, both described as being faced with stucco, at 444 Rimpau Boulevard
  • The son of a tailor, Arthur Strasburger was born in Brooklyn on November 15, 1879. By the age of 20 Strasburger had become a dry-goods buyer in New York and had by 1903 moved to Los Angeles. Here became a buyer for Johnston-Barrett Dry Goods, a wholesaler with offices on North Los Angeles Street. In 1906 he was tapped by Arthur Letts as a New York–based buyer for The Broadway, returning to the west coast in 1914. Nearing 36, he married 19-year-old Margaret Bowes of San Francisco in October of the next year. Arthur Jr. arrived on October 10, 1923. The Strasburgers were expecting another child by the time construction of 444 Rimpau Boulevard began; Marilyn appeared on March 7, 1925


Arthur Strasburger at the time he was named
president of the Board of Water and
Power Commissioners, 1931.


  • Considered a merchandising expert by Arthur Letts, Arthur Strasburger became vice-president in charge of merchandise at The Broadway; he would be among those executives to whom Arthur Letts Jr. sold the store in 1926. Two years later, Strasburger retired from the company's day-to-day operations though he retained a seat on its board of directors. By this time he had founded the Los Angeles Down Town Shopping News, a broadsheet that at one time had a circulation of 400,000; in October 1930, Strasburger was appointed to the Board of Water and Power Commissioners by Mayor John Clinton Porter. On March 12, 1931, he became president of the board
  • The Strasburgers' daughter Janet was born on March 21, 1929. The children would attend the Berkeley Hall School, then a stronghold of Christian Science in terms of faculty and students. The family remained at 444 Rimpau Boulevard until the house was sold in 1939, it having been placed on the market the previous summer. The Strasburgers moved to Carmel
  • On June 21, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued Arthur Strasburger a permit for a new bathroom at 444 Rimpau; architect Jack Olerich designed the addition
  • Idaho oilman Daniel Steen Fletcher bought 444 Rimpau Boulevard from the Strasburgers and moved in with his wife Marie and three sons in 1939. The Fletchers were moving from Boise, where Steen, as he was known, had begun an oil-delivery service in 1912. This operation expanded into bulk plants, service stations, and refineries in Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California. Steen Fletcher is little mentioned in terms of his business in the Times over the years but is referred to many dozens of times for his polo prowess. His Boise team competed in Southern California from the 1920s into the '40s, he sometimes riding with his sons Robert and Dan and frequently at the Midwick Country Club, membership in which for several decades was coveted at least as much as membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, its Westside counterpart. (Midwick was in Alhambra, which over time made it less attractive as the city expanded toward the Pacific.) Marie Davis Fletcher was another Idaho native; she and Steen had married in Boise on September 26, 1916, with Robert and Daniel arriving by 1920. Wilfred ("Bill") came along in early 1922. Mrs. Fletcher, a charter member of the Boise Junior League, adapted to U.H.B. Hancock Park life easily. She became active in the local League and in the exclusive Junior Philharmonic Committee, among other ladies' volunteer pursuits of the era. Steen Fletcher died at 444 Rimpau Boulevard on August 28, 1958. His widow remained until 1960
  • On May 15, 1940, the Department of Building and Safety issued Steen Fletcher a permit to panel an unspecified existing room in knotty pine. On February 23, 1951, Fletcher was issued a permit for a two-story addition to 444 Rimpau, one incorporating an enlarged and altered library on the first floor and a sitting room on the second


As seen in the Los Angeles Times, January 6, 1938: Steen Fletcher and his very
close Hancock Park neighbor, attorney Neil S. McCarthy, were indefatigable
polo players. McCarthy lived at 465 Muirfield Road; while on different
streets, a corner of McCarthy's lot touched one of Fletcher's.


  • John Carl Ingram bought the property from the Fletchers. Ingram worked for the family firm, the Ingram Paper Company, which supplied wholesalers with fine and course papers as well as bags and rope; it was founded by his grandfather John Clarence Ingram in 1927. Jack Ingram had married Jane McKee in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 4, 1950, the couple settling in Los Angeles. They built 1037 Casiano Road in Bel-Air in 1952; it may be that with the Ingram paper plant all the way east in Commerce, the commute had become onerous for Jack, with the Santa Monica Freeway—now "the 10"—not to be completed to the Pacific until 1966. Living in Hancock Park would take some time off the drive, but, with two young sons and another due, the move to 444 Rimpau would also gain space for a growing family. The Ingrams remained at 444 until the mid 1970s
  • On March 12, 1964, the Department of Building and Safety issued John Ingram a permit for a bath renovation; on September 25, 1967, Ingram received a permit to add a 14-by-27-foot recreation room to the south side of the garage
  • Robert McGregor was next in possession of 444 Rimpau Boulevard. On October 27, 1979, the Department of Building and Safety issued him a permit for a 20-by-34-foot swimming pool at the southeast corner of the property
  • Owners of 444 Rimpau Boulevard succeeding Robert McGregor have carried out various interior remodelings


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAPL; LAT