PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1922 on Lot 9 in Tract 3819
  • Original commissioner: Lawrence R. Sevier, a dentist and banker
  • Architect: William F. Bowen; extensive 1944 remodeling by Paul Revere Williams
  • On September 7, 1922, the Department of Buildings issued a permit to Dr. L. R. Sevier for a 20-by-20-foot garage on the unimproved lot at 424 Muirfield Road; Sevier was issued a permit a nine-room residence at 424 on September 22, 1922. Cited as contractor on both documents is Milton L. Sevier, Dr. Sevier's father, a veteran Los Angeles contractor and real estate man
  • Lawrence Roland Sevier was born in northeastern Missouri on November 10, 1874. After dental training in Chicago, he arrived in Southern California with his parents and other family members by 1889. Sevier practiced dentistry in Los Angeles until in 1923 he was drafted by his wife's half-brother, the renown banker Dr. A. P. Giannini, to join the latter's Bank of Italy empire as it expanded. Sevier became an officer of the bank at the time of its opening of elaborate new headquarters building at Seventh and Olive streets downtown (now the NoMad Los Angeles Hotel). (The Bank of Italy absorbed the smaller Bank of America of Los Angeles in 1928; in 1930, A. P. Giannini officially changed the name "Bank of Italy" to "Bank of America," which is the surviving entity today.)
  • On May 25, 1928, the Department of Building and Safety issued Dr. Sevier a permit to add a sunroom to the rear of 424 Muirfield Road, one with a covered exterior terrace
  • Dr. Lawrence R. Sevier died at Good Samaritan Hospital early on the morning of June 26, 1928, following stomach surgery. A funeral was held at 424 Muirfield Road before a service at St. Vincent's Church at Adams and Figueroa and his interment at Calvary Cemetery. Sevier was the subject of large obituaries in the Times and Evening Express, with an A.P. item noting his demise appearing in The New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune and elswhere across the country 
  • Dr. Sevier married Florence Scatena in San Francisco in 1906 three months before the earthquake and fire. The Seviers had two daughters; Virginia Lorraine was born on May 11, 1907, Nina Natalie on November 3, 1917. Virginia was married to Ransom W. Chase at the Los Angeles Country Club on May 9, 1931; she was given away by her uncle A. P. Giannini. (In a wedding fad of the day, her attendants were dressed in colors of the rainbow.) Dr. Giannini would also give away Natalie, as she was known, when she married James H. Sword at St. Brendan's Church on June 21, 1941; a reception was held at the Town House even though the family was still in possession of 424 Muirfield Road. James Swords's parents lived at 452 South Las Palmas in Hancock Park. Interestingly, Jayne Copp, who lived next door at 414 Muirfield, was Nina's maid of honor; also notable is that Miss Copp's uncle, Dr. Joseph P. Copp, would soon be completing a deal to buy 414 Muirfield from Florence Sevier


Virginia Lorraine Sevier Chase as seen in the Los Angeles Times on May 24, 1931; her sister
Nina Natalie Sevier Sword appeared in the same paper on June 23, 1941.


  • Joseph Pettee Copp, born in Los Angeles on September 4, 1887, was the youngest of attorney and real estate investor Andrew Copp Sr.'s four sons. Copp Sr., Yale '69 and Columbia Law, had settled at Millerton, New York, before bringing his family to Los Angeles in 1884; he practiced law in the city until retiring in 1895, afterward concentrating on his property investments. A big project of his was the purchase that year of the city's first synagogue—precursor of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple—and its replacement with the Copp Building at 218 South Broadway. (This structure was demolished in 1931, the family retaining the lot.) Joseph Copp received his degree from the U.S.C. School of Dentistry and practiced in Los Angeles for decades; he became the second dentist to own 424 Muirfield Road. Dr. Copp and his wife Ethel had three sons, Joseph Pettee Jr., Andrew James, and Newton Hogan. Andrew was born in 1913, 4½ months before his first cousin Andrew James Copp. While that cousin usually went by his middle name, he was officially Andrew James Copp III despite being the fourth to bear the name. For some reason, Joseph's son's suffix was based on the count from the original Andrew James Copp, born in 1815, who died at Antietam in 1862 and whose son had rejiggered the succession by assuming "Sr." after his father's death. (Transfers of suffixes was a once-common practice)
  • On September 20, 1944, the Department of Building and Safety issued Dr. Joseph P. Copp a permit for a major renovation of 424 Muirfield Road. Hired as architect was Paul Revere Williams, who was charged with giving the house a new look that included new cornices, a new entrance and entrance porch, and interior alterations including a new bathroom. The roof was replaced; the permit notes that there had been fire damage. The façade changes included Williams's signature porch columns and header of wrought-iron tracery, as would be seen in the architect's nearby 1949 makeover of a supermarket into Perino's restaurant and the 1957 renovation of 68 Fremont Place. (This detail of 424 Muirfield is just discernible in our illustration above.) On July 9, 1947, Copp was issued a permit to add a 10-by-16-foot storage room to the garage
  • Although no specific address is indicated, classified advertisements appeared in the Times in early 1954 offering a "New Orleans Colonial" on Muirfield Road for sale for $57,500
  • Dr. John Harry Gifford, a surgeon, became the owner of 424 Muirfield Road after the departure of the Copps. According to his 2006 obituary, Dr. Gifford, born in Spokane on September 29, 1914, "completed his residency at the California Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. There, he served surgical patients and hospital staff for 30 years, both as Chief of Surgery and Chief of Staff." Gifford and his wife Helen were moving to Hancock Park from Leimert Park with their three young daughters, Susan, Jeanne, and Carolyn; by the early 1970s, Harry and Helen Gifford had retired to their Fresno County ranch
  • The owner of 424 Muirfield Road since the mid 1970s has added and altered bathrooms, added an 18-by-40-foot-pool and spa, replaced the roof, and added an elevator


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT