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  • Built in 1927 on Lot 14 in Tract 3819
  • Original commissioner: Dr. George Lemuel Palmer, a retired dentist turned real estate investor who built 427 Muirfield Road as his own home in 1923 and remained there; 514 Muirfield Road was apparently a speculative project in collaboration with his architect son
  • Architect: George Vincent Palmer (a.k.a. G. Vincent Palmer), son of Dr. Palmer. G. Vincent Palmer also designed his parents' house at 427 Muirfield Road, which was built in 1923 and demolished in 2002, as well as 400 Muirfield Road
  • Mrs. George L. Palmer was Floy Louise Peters, sister of Iva P. Hamlin, the wife of Whittier-rancher-turned-contractor Ralph Hamlin for whom G. Vincent Palmer built 656 South Hudson Avenue in 1925 and for whom he may have designed 530 South Rossmore Avenue. Ralph Hamlin is not to be confused with the higher-profile Los Angeles automobile dealer Ralph C. Hamlin, to whom he appears unrelated; it seems that George L. Palmer and Ralph Hamlin were investing in similar house projects, employing G. Vincent Palmer as their designer
  • After marrying in Los Angeles in July 1901, George and Floy Palmer settled in Toronto, where he practiced dentistry; the couple and their Toronto-born children, George Vincent and Floy Bernice, immigrated via Detroit in October 1921 to resettle in Los Angeles
  • 514 Muirfield Road appears to have languished on the market even before the onset of the Depression. Palmer appears to have leased the house after it was completed; the first known tenant was Pennsylvania oilman Franklin G. McIntosh, who occupied the house from October 1930 before moving on to Beverly Hills
  • The house was purchased by attorney Harold C. Morton by early 1934. On April 9 of that year the Department of Building and Safety issued Harold Morton a permit for the addition of two bedrooms created by extending wings rearward, as well as other alterations. Sydney Clifton and Lawrence Furniss were the designers. On May 29, 1934, Morton was issued a permit to build a brick barbecue pit in the backyard. A permit for repairs needed after a fire in the garage was issued to Morton on December 22, 1938


Determined looks: A large illustrated article in the Los Angeles Times on
December 20, 1916, told of death averted and of accomplishments
notable already at their tender ages of 19 and 21. "She is an
accomplished musician, and it was her dancing as well
as her leaning towards 'law' that captured the
heart of the big six-footer the first
time they met, which was at
an alumni dance."

 
  • The wedding of native Angeleno Harold Coleman Morton and his Ohio-born fiancée Dorothy was to take place on December 21, 1916, but was delayed when she came down with ptomaine poisoning the day before; the Times reported dramatically that she and her mother were stricken at home on Wilton Place when Harold came to the rescue. He had been graduated the previous June from U.S.C.'s Law College with highest honors; Dorothy was earning her own degree at the Law College and the newlyweds were reported to have plans to open a practice together. This arrangement does not seem to have come to fruition, but her ambition to do something other than be a housewife would come later with her long service as a Los Angeles city parks commissioner; a lengthy tribute in the Times in 1958 would chronicle her civic career and her life as an avid horsewoman. The Mortons had a son and three daughters. The girls appear to have had conventional Hancock Park upbringings, with high school, U.S.C. and Delta Gamma, Las Madrinas debuts, and marriage their common trajectory. Barbara (who appears to have been named Mary when she was born in 1919) was married to B.M.O.C. Joseph C. Shell in 1940, Betty to Richard K. Jamison (then in the Marines) in 1943, and Dorothy (known as Dody) to Occidental senior Richard W. Wheaton in 1947. The Shells would make their own Hancock Park real estate splash by purchasing the lavish 611 Muirfield Road, a block north of her parents' house, in October 1951. As brides the sisters all wore the same veil; their ceremonies were all at St. James' Episcopal nearby on Wilshire Boulevard and all three receptions were held in the garden of 514 Muirfield Road


As seen in the Times on August 12, 1958,
61-year-old, 100-pound Dorothy
 Morton was featured in
a major tribute.


  • The Mortons' son, Lynn (christened Clifton Lindley Morton), married Margaret "Mackie" Macy of Camarillo at the First Congregational Church on Sixth Street on March 3, 1945, with Hollywood's Gower Champion serving as one of his ushers and the reception being held at 514 Muirfield Road. Mackie was a U.S.C. sorority sister of her new sisters-in-law; Lynn, then a P.F.C. in the Army, was an alumnus of Harvard Military School and U.S.C. His postwar career seems to have been sketchy; 1961 newspaper articles would describe him as the owner of a service station, which seems to translate into "ne'er-do-well." The Mortons were racing enthusiasts, as were his parents, the family often seen locally and at Del Mar cheering on their horses. By early January 1952 they had four children. Nine years later Mackie Morton was dead at the hands of her husband; things had not been going well at home, with Mrs. Morton having checked into the Starlight Motel on Silver Lake Boulevard—arriving in her mother-in-law's chauffeured limousine—on May 5, 1961, having told a neighbor that she was leaving home until her husband moved out, which he apparently did not. She would be described in news reports after her death that June 18 as suffering from acute alcoholism; his own taste for booze was only suggested by reports of a drunken brawl lasting into the wee hours of the evening of June 17 at home at 237 North Norton Avenue. While the "oil heir"—as the press often referred to Lynn—claimed variously that a fall out of the top of a bunk bed—or was it a fall down stairs?—resulted in his wife choking to death on her own blood, police on the scene thought his bruised and swollen hands, with traces of blood under his fingernails, suggested foul play. It seems that Harold Morton had been summoned from 514 Muirfield Road: As Lynn was being led from his residence in handcuffs, he shouted to his father, "Pa, will you come down and bail me out?" The Times reported that a grand jury voted to indict Morton for murder in less than 15 minutes after hearing testimony from 12 witnesses, including three of his children, and after a forensic chemist attested to blood-stained walls, some traces seven feet from the floor. Buttons missing from Mrs. Morton's blood-covered robe also indicated a struggle. The judge in a no-jury trial later in the year decided that Lynn, originally charged with first-degree murder, was guilty of manslaughter. He received a 1-to-10-year prison sentence but served a mere 13 months; a cynic might wonder what Harold and Dorothy Morton's considerable legal and political influence might have had to do with the lesser charge and the scant time their son spent behind bars. (Lynn appears to have become a remittance man exiled to a small Missouri town in the Ozarks, arguably better than life in prison or the gas chamber)


As seen in the Times on November 4, 1961: Towering over his son, nebbish-looking but
with lethal hands, Harold Morton might be reassuring Lynn that he'd be working to
ensure his time in prison would be short. It is unclear as to who may have
been left to raise Lynn's children (15, 13, 11, and 9 at the time of
their mother's death), but it may well have been their
energetic grandparents, empty-nesters whose
house at 514 Muirfield Road was
roomy enough for them.


  • Hancock Park life continued for Harold and Dorothy Morton and other members of the family even while Lynn was in the slammer at Chino. The Mortons kept up with the horseracing circuit and worked to get the Music Center off the ground, with Dorothy continuing as a member of the city's Recreation and Parks Commission. Their son-in-law Joseph Shell, now a state assemblyman, made plans to challenge Richard Nixon in the Republican gubernatorial primary in California in 1962. Socially, the family barely sidelined itself, with at least one large writeup of a family wedding appearing unself-consciously in the Times amid coverage of the pesky stories of Mackie Morton's demise, Lynn Morton's murder trial, and his incarceration
  • On March 11, 1964, the Department of Building and Safety issued Harold Morton a permit to add an 18-by-24-foot sunroom to the rear of the house
  • The Morton family would retain 514 Muirfield Road for at least 50 years. Still living in the house, Harold Morton died of a heart attack on July 14, 1978
  • 514 Muirfield Road—an "English brick tennis estate" per a Times classified ad—was being offered for sale in July 1984 for $1,250,000; an online source indicates that the property last sold for $3,000,000 in March 1990
  • Dorothy Morton appears to have moved to 220 South Arden Boulevard in nearby Windsor Heights after leaving 514 Muirfield Road. She died there on January 29, 1992
  • Owners of 514 Muirfield Road after the Mortons appear to have altered little beyond maintenance and a roof replacement in 2000


     Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT