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  • Built in 1923 on a parcel comprised of Lot 33 and the southerly ½ (50 feet) of Lot 34 in Tract 3819
  • Original commissioner: corporate and film industry attorney Neil Steere McCarthy
  • Architect: John R. Kibbey
  • On October 18, 1923, the Department of Buildings issued Neil S. McCarthy permits for a 15-room, two-story residence and an 80-by-24-foot, one-story garage/servants' quarters; the address indicated on the latter permit was "467 Muirfield Road"
  • Born to a blacksmith on May 6, 1888, in Phoenix, then a town of 3,000, Neil McCarthy grew up on a ranch outside town, where from an early age horses became his passion; in later life he became a recehorse owner and breeder and a championship polo player. Within a year of his graduation from the University of Michigan law school in 1910, McCarthy launched his legal career in Los Angeles, partnering at first with Walter Rheinschild. Before long he partnered with Frank James and Walter E. Smith in Douglas Building offices; understanding early on the value of a high profile, and mostly always enjoying it, McCarthy had his name set in boldface type in his listing in the 1912 Los Angeles city directory. He was indeed noticed, his legal career taking off and in time aligning with the film industry through an early association with Jesse L. Lasky's Famous Players Film Company, which morphed into Paramount Pictures. He was also counsel to the Hughes Tool Company and its founder, Howard Hughes Sr.; after Hughes died in 1924, his son inherited the business and, famously, began to invest in Hollywood as well as in aviation ventures. Over time McCarthy would be representing Paramount producer and director Cecil B. DeMille and Paramount itself, M.G.M. head Louis B. Mayer, as well as a Who's Who of actors including Rudolph Valentino, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Edward G. Robinson, Fred Astaire, Cary Grant, Gene Kelly, Joan Bennett, Ava Gardner, and Lana Turner. Client Joan Crawford married her third husband, actor Phillip Terry, at McCarthy's horse ranch in Hidden Valley on July 21, 1942. He also represented East Coast socialites when they needed help during visits to Los Angeles and his legacy includes the locally famous Neil McCarthy Salad, a version of the Brown Derby's Cobb, created to his specifications by the Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge in 1948
  • In his gossipy 2011 book Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles, Michael Gross writes that McCarthy wanted a Spanish-style house on the wide Muirfield Road parcel at 465 Muirfield Road but that Marguerite "insisted on an East coast colonial with six columns out front; she consented to green shutters decorated with shamrock cutouts to honor McCarthy's heritage." Gross described the property's "long, unheated swimming pool that McCarthy would empty of water in winter and use to practice polo, setting up a wooden horse in the deep end, hitting the ball against the shallow end, and watching it roll back. (No doubt crack repairs were required before the pool was refilled for summer.) The McCarthys had been married on April 23, 1912, in her hometown of Binghamton, New York; by the late summer of 1919 they were parents of a son and three daughters. After all four children were off on their own, Neil moved out of 465 to live in Bel-Air; he had asked Marguerite for a divorce, but she decided she would rather not. Neil's high-altitude persona began to reveal him as officially something other than a regular Hancock Park family man and Hollywood chroniclers began to take note, such as when the churlish and censorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper made an oblique reference to his extramarital relationship with a daughter of oilman Burton E. Green, among the original developers of Beverly Hills, when she referred to Dolly Green Walker as "Neil McCarthy's friend" in the Times on January 26, 1949. Neil and Marguerite never divorced; she would remain in possession of 465 Muirfield Road even after beginning to spend much of her time in southern New Hampshire writing cookbooks, including The Queen Is in the Kitchen (1954) in which she offers informal rather than regal recipes and states heretically that television viewing should be encouraged at mealtimes
  • On July 22, 1929, the Department of Building and Safety issued Neil McCarthy a permit for a 16-by-16-foot two-story addition to the house; on January 23, 1935, McCarthy was issued a permit for various interior alterations. On March 3, 1939, he was issued a permit to add a 13-by-14-foot maid's room to 465 and to enlarge the service porch; the firm of Wurdeman & Beckett (Walter C. Wurdeman and Welton D. Becket) is noted on the document as architect for the design




    Seen in a 1943 portrait by the Edward S. Curtis Studios
    (founded by the well-recognized photographer of Native people
    who had also worked with Neil McCarthy's major client Cecil B. DeMille
    as a cameraman and still photographer) are Marjorie, David, and Sharon Gless
    with Marguerite McCarthy, who was called "Grimmy" by her grandchildren. Through
    Neil McCarthy's legal career the family bridged, unusually, establishment Los Angeles and
    Hollywood. Below he is seen presenting his granddaughters Sharon Marguerite Gless and
    Rosemary Dillon Bullis at the 1961 Las Madrinas ball benefiting the Old Guard's favorite
    charity, Children's Hospital, long championed by the quiet but very powerful social
    arbiter Mrs. Albert Crutcher. In its first year, 1933, the ball was held in the Sala
    de Oro at the Biltmore Hotel; the venue 28 years later, the Beverly Hilton,
    reflected the city's growth west from Hancock Park toward the Pacific.




    • The McCarthys announced the engagements of their two eldest daughters in the Times on March 28, 1937. Rosemary, 22, married Dr. John Albert Bullis in a small family ceremony at home at 465 Muirfield Road on May 12. Marjorie, 23, married sportswear salesman Dennis Joseph Gless at St. Vincent de Paul on Adams Boulevard on June 26; a reception was held afterward at 465. Before long the groom's new father-in-law found him a position as head of public relations for Desmond's department stores. On his paternal grandmother's side Dennis Gless was descended from Domingo Amestoy, a Basque who had arrived in Southern California a year after statehood and made a fortune in wool-raising and vast amounts of property south of the city as well as in the Valley. The Glesses' first child, Marguerite, was born on November 14, 1938, and lived just a day. Their son Michael was born on August 1, 1940. A daughter born on May 31, 1943, grew up to become the actress Sharon Gless. Once the McCarthys separated and Marguerite began spending a good deal of time in New England, she invited the Glesses to move into the Hancock Park house, though she limited their occupancy to the children's wing. Coming from a cottage in Carthay Circle that was something of a cut-down 465, complete with six columns across a front porch, the Glesses arrived on Muirfield Road by mid 1948; Aric Gless was born on December 3, 1950. As Sharon Gless has said in interviews herself, it was Marguerite McCarthy, continuing to be well supported by her husband even after his departure, who controlled the finances of those who lived at 465. "She held the purse strings, and that’s a tremendous amount of power"
    • Neil and Maguerite McCarthy's third daughter, Kathleen, married John Lovell Hill at St. Vincent's on August 19, 1941, with a reception for 400 afterward in the gardens at 465 Muirfield Road. Marjorie Gless was her sister's matron of honor
    • On March 16, 1950, the Department of Building and Safety issued "Mrs. M G. McCarthy" a permit to rid the house of termites
    • By early 1958, after 35 years at 465 Muirfield Road, the extended McCarthy family had departed. The Glesses were by now divorced, with Dennis moving to a room at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Though she began to spend most of her time at a new house she built in Carmel, Marguerite bought a garden apartment for herself and a two-bedroom unit for Marjorie and Aric at Park La Brea. Michael was at U.S.C. living in the A.T.O. house; Sharon was up in Monterey at Santa Catalina School for Girls
    • Sharon Gless's great-grandmother Juanita Amestoy Gless built a notable house designed by Arthur S. Heineman at 627 South Ardmore Avenue in 1913, apparently with some of the last of the Amestoy fortune; John G. Bullock of the department stores bought it and in 1925 moved it to 605 South Plymouth Boulevard in Windsor Square, where it still stands. Juanita Gless's son Constant married Nellie Duggan of New Orleans, who would become Sharon Gless's paternal grandmother, a quieter woman but one no less formidable than Sharon's maternal grandmother Marguerite McCarthy. After some years in a cottage in Melrose Hill, Mrs. Gless divorced her husband and went to work to support Dennis and his sister Juanita. She seems to have been content with her independence even as the cottage became a studio apartment in a Kenmore Avenue elevator building called the Endicott that became a haven for her granddaughter as family life on Muirfield Road became more complicated
    • Marguerite Gless sold 465 Muirfield Road to Winnipeg-born insurance man Albert Arnold Binney; Binney and his wife Helen, son Albert Jr., and daughter Susan moved into the house in 1958. On October 15 of that year the Department of Building and Safety issued Albert Binney a permit for a swimming pool at 465 Muirfield, apparently a replacement for Neil McCarthy's polo-practice version. The Binneys were social acquaintances of the Glesses, and Susan Binney and Sharon Gless were childhood best friends. When Susan married James Thomas Cole at All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills on  June 15, 1963, Sharon was her maid of honor. Sharon, her mother, and grandmother attended the reception afterward at their fomer home at 465 Muirfield. The Binneys would remain at 465 until 1964 and be succeeded by someone whose name was not yet a household name
    • Harry Robbins Haldeman, Bob to his friends and more familiar as H. R. Haldeman, was an advertising executive with J. Walter Thompson who became involved in politics with Eisenhower's 1956 campaign and who would play a large part in promoting Nixon during his campaigns for office in the '60s—two attempts that failed and a third that was successful until it spectacularly wasn't. When Nixon was elected to the presidency in 1968, Haldeman became his chief of staff, which, as is well known, ended in ignominy for both men. In April 1973, 16 months before Nixon left office, Haldeman, ordered to resign, returned to California, though he had given up 465 Muirfield Road after moving to Washington in 1969. The 2020 obituary of his successor in the house, real estate developer Stuart M. Ketchum, related Ketchum's description of the day President Nixon phoned him to act as 'broker' in the purchase of 465 from Haldeman. (In 1973 the Haldemans returned to California, first staying at his parents' Bay Island house before settling into another Hancock Park house at 443 North McCadden Place; they moved to Santa Barbara in 1986. H. R. Haldeman was found to have participated in the White House's attempts to cover up its involvement in the Watergate break-in of June 1972. In 1974 he was tried on three counts of perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and obstruction of justice, found guilty on New Years Day 1975, and sent to Lompoc for 18 months. Returning to private life, he became a successful real estate developer
    • The writer Peter Haldeman, third of H. R.'s four children, expertly wove an intensely evocative story titled "Growing Up Haldeman" that appeared in The New York Times on April 3, 1994. The memoir offers a particularly native-Angeleno description of Hancock Park—"regarded by its inhabitants as a 'less flashy' alternative to the West Side"—as well his childhood impression of 465 Muirfield Road: "The easiest way to identify the neighborhood is by contradistinction, which is largely how it identifies itself. It's not Hollywood. This is Los Angeles with a hard 'g'—as some of my grandparents persisted in pronouncing it—a zone defined chiefly by tradition. Psychologically, it stretches back to the Midwest, where most of my great-grandparents had come from. Cultural totems include the now defunct Bullocks tearoom, a box at the Hollywood Bowl and security by Pinkerton's.... The house I remember most vividly was a shingled Colonial with backyard features that I considered providential: a 60-foot pool, an avocado tree big enough to spend the night in and a badminton court that was better for roller skating" The tendency to circle the wagons has been as strong in provincial American social tribes as it has been in New York or Washington, in Los Angeles even as events between Watergate and H. R. Haldeman's release from Lompoc in December 1978. A sure sign of bygone Hancock Park equanimity was the presentation of his daughter Ann at the 1977 Las Madrinas ball at the Beverly Hilton, albeit on the arm of her brother Hank rather than her father
    • Succeeding the Haldemans at 465 Muirfield Road was Stuart M. Ketchum Jr., a prolific real estate developer born in New Rochellle, New York, on March 22, 1926, became and major philanthropist whose love of music led to his unpaid work in bringing the Walt Disney Concert Hall to fruition, a project that "involved 16 years of intensive management," according to his obituary in the Times of February 18, 2020. Architect Eugene Kohn explained in the tribute that Ketchum "volunteered because he loved Downtown Los Angeles and the Philharmonic." Ketchum's multimillion-dollar donation helped build the Ketchum-Downtown Y.M.C.A., which provided after-school programs and arrangements for working parents and seniors in underserved areas near the city's original core. Ketchum, who served as president of the Hancock Park Homeowners Association, was moving from 122 South McCadden Place; before that he lived at 527 North June Street
    • On January 18, 1972, the Department of Building and Safety issued Stuart Ketchum a permit for chimney repairs needed at 465 after the Northridge earthquake of 11 months before
    • It is unclear as to when Stuart Ketchum sold 465 Muirfield Road. Although the next owner appears to have retained the house until 1993, a classified ad appeared in the Times on July 18, 1982, offering 465 Muirfield Road for sale—"a majestic colonial on 1½ prime lots. Pool and guesthouse"—for $1,250,000. The broker indicated was Geri Lyddan, apparently the wife of property developer William C. Lyddan Jr. On June 17, 1983, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mr. Lyddan a permit for the addition of a spa next to the pool at the rear of the property. The Lyddans appear to have moved on to 520 South Lucerne Boulevard in Windsor Square by the summer of 1991
    • A permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety on March 12, 2009, was curious both for the work authorized—the replacement of a dishwasher—and for the owner of the property being cited as the U.S. Government


      Marjorie McCarthy and Dennis Gless are seen happy at their wedding reception in the garden of 465
      Muirfield Road on June 26, 1937. Eleven years later, Sharon Gless runs with characteristic
      exuberance with her brother Michael south across the front porch of 465; 73 years
      after that sprint, Sharon published her honest, very funny memoir
      these family images were taken.



      FURTHER READING
      by Sharon Gless (Simon & Schuster, 2021)
      by Michael Gross (Broadway Books, 2011)



      Illustrations: Private Collection; Edward S. Curtis Studios/Gless Family Collection