PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1923 on Lot 23 in Tract 3819
  • Original commissioner: Alexander D. Chisholm, who had recently formed a contracting, building and real estate development company with William H. Fortine and Evan L. Meikle; built on spec. Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle built a number of other speculative residences in Los Angeles during the 1920s, including at least three in nearby Windsor Square
  • Architect: Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle is indicated on the original building permit for 645 as owner, architect, and contractor; the firm, as did similar organizations, employed draftsmen to execute designs or subcontracted them out to independent architects
  • On September 20, 1923, the Department of Buildings issued permits to Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle for a 12-room house and a 26-by-20-foot garage
  • The text accompanying a rendering of the house appearing in the Los Angeles Times on January 20, 1924, suggests that it was not yet completed; it had not yet found a buyer


    As seen in the Los Angeles Times on January 20, 1924: "An attractive Italian-renaissance home for
    645 South Muirfield street is being designed by Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle, arranged to
    contain twelve room and five baths. Tile will be used for roofing while stucco
    materials, trimmed with travertine, will be utilized on the exterior."


    • On June 29, 1924, the Los Angeles Times again featured 645 Murfield Road prominently in its real estate section. Accompanying a large picture of the house was an item revealing that William H. Semmens, a 69-year-old retired Pittsburgh banker, former Pennsylvania state senator, and native of Cornwall, England, had just bought the house. After the death of his first wife, Semmens remarried in 1886 and had three children. Widowed again in 1919, he married 30-year-old recently widowed Lillian Booth Spivey of Athens, Georgia, a year later and adopted her two young sons, the younger of whom would retain the name Semmens, the elder reverting to his father's surname. A passenger list for the City of Los Angeles indicates that the family arrived home from a Hawaiian vacation on July 11, 1925. That day, according to The Pittsburgh Post on the 20th, Semmens was struck by a car; he had died at Good Samaritan Hospital the day before. He was buried next to his second wife in Pennsylvania. Lillian Semmes and her sons remained at 645 Muirfield Road until early 1928, when they moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. A large photograph of her appeared in the Times on December 20, 1927, after she gave a farewell luncheon for friends at the recently opened Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood




    As seen in the Los Angeles Times on June 29, 1924: "W. H. Semmens,
     for many years prominent in Pittsburg (Pa.) banking circles, has purchased
    the attractive residence located at 645 South Muirfield Road in Hancock Park from
    Chisholm, Fortine & Meikle, builders." A slightly different angle of the house
    appeared in a display advertisement in the Times on May 10, 1925.



    • Stuffy Hancock Park was not usually the first choice of Hollywood actors, producers, and directors, although there were some who preferred it to Beverly Hills and the Westside. It may be that Lillian Semmes rented 645 Muirfield Road before it was sold. In residence in 1929 was Watterson R. Rothacker, whose Rothacker Film Manufacturing Company, film processors, was founded in 1919. Rothacker was also a film producer and was in 1929 vice-president of the Association of the Motion Picture Producers. It is likely he who introduced the next owner to 645
    • Henry King, director of over 100 films, and his wife Gypsy had been living on the beach at Santa Monica before deciding to move inland. The couple rented 645 Muirfield Road at first, perhaps from Lillian Semmes, occupying it with their two young sons and four live-in-servants; they became the owners of the house by the summer of 1930
    • On July 10, 1930, the Department of Building and Safety issued Henry King a permit for an 8-by-12-foot two-story addition to the rear of the house. A permit issued to King on July 1, 1936, authorized interior alterations and new windows
    • Henry and Gypsy King met while both were living in Long Beach and making the transition from the stage to film work. They were married in Los Angeles on March 23, 1914. Born in Georgia on January 31, 1893, as Gypsy Rose Everdale—in some records she appears to have subtracted as many as six years from her age—Mrs. King continued to perform in silents as Gypsy Abbott after her marriage. She had had a daughter in 1913, apparently by a man named Graham; appearing in pictures herself, the child was billed as "Little Ruth Everdale, better known as Ruth Abbott, daughter of Gypsy Abbott" and was adopted by Henry King. By 1920, King had made the further transition to directing; he and Gypsy would themselves have two sons and another daughter. The Kings were still living at 645 Muirfield Road when Gypsy died there on July 25, 1952. Her obituary in the Times the next day made no mention of her acting career and gave her age as 55; the birthdate etched on her gravestone is 1896
    • Henry King remained at 645 Murfield Road until 1960, when Franklin E. Wheelock, a hearing-aid dealer, moved in with his wife Margaret. The Wheelocks were in residence until at least 1973 and possibly for another decade
    • By the spring of 1984 an entity known as the Varap Corporation owned 645 Muirfield Road. On April 4, 1984, Varap, apparently the business of Iranian-born contractor Hovik Khodabakhshian, was issued a permit by the Department of Building and Safety for a kitchen remodeling. Curiously, the house next door at 635 Muirfield Road had been acquired and renovated a few years before by Lebanese-born contractor Vardan Oundjian; his business was called the Virab Corporation. Both contractors bought the houses to flip
    • Hancock Park lots near Wilshire Boulevard began to lose their appeal as those fronting the thoroughfare were rezoned for multifamily residential and commercial purposes. The triangular lot to the south of 645 Muirfield Road was once empty, used on accasion for Christmas tree sales and later as a parking lot. By 1990, the three-story office building at 4601 Wilshire Boulevard wad looming over 645
    • 645 Muirfield Road was advertised for sale in the Times in the summer of 1985 for $875,000; by late September, the price was $785,000. Languishing on the market, the price was down to $749,000 in late November of 1986. The appeal of Hancock Park was at a low ebb 
    • Attorney Terry O'Toole and his wife Evelyn, real estate investors with a penchant for the former residences of top Hollywood directors, owned 645 Muirfield Road by 1987. That year the couple was issued permits by the Department of Building and Safety (on April 6 and August 6, respectively) for the addition of a swimming pool and an eight-foot-high, 300-foot long concrete block wall along the south and rear property lines. In 1988, the O'Tooles bought Cecil B. DeMille's house in Los Feliz, which they flipped two years later
    • Advertisements appearing in the Times in the summer of 1990 cited an asking price of $1,695,000 for 645 Murfield Road; by mid October, it had been reduced by $100,000
    • Office-building-adjacent 645 Murfield Road sold for $3,750,000 in September 2017


    Looking west from Wilshire Boulevard as it is being improved toward 645 Muirfield Road, center right,
    in February 1925 soon after the house's completion. It would be years before Hancock Park
     resembled something other than a muddy, sparsely populated plain and before
    trees grew and the construction cacophony of streetworks and the
    hammering and sawing of new residences died down.



    Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT; USCDL