PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES





  • Built in 1927 on Lot 30 in Tract 3668
  • Original commissioner: Harry J. Reidsma
  • Architect: Arthur W. Hawes and C. Hugh Kirk
  • On February 23, 1927, the Department of Building and Safety issued Harry J. Reidsma a permit for a 12-room house at 234 Muirfield Road; he was issued a permit for a two-story, 27-by-40-foot garage and staff quarters at 234 on April 8, 1927
  • Harry John Reidsma was the president of the National Protective Agency, an aggressive-sounding name for a collection agency. Alongside it in 1933, Reidsma and his wife opened the United States Credit Bureau, described as a finance organization for the purchase and sale of leases on land and securities. Reidsma had married Juanita Freeman in September 1915; their only child, Gloria June, was born on October 30, 1925. Their niece Dorothy Nita Marks, the daughter of Mrs. Reidsma's sister, lived with her aunt and uncle and cousin at 234 Muirfield Road as a teenager
  • On July 25, 1934, the Department of Building and Safety issued Mrs. Reidsma permit for an 11-by-18-foot aviary on the property
  • On December 9, 1934, the Los Angeles Times reported in adjacent paragraphs the sale of 234 Muirfield Road by the Reidsmas to attorney Philip Sheridan Dickinson and their purchase of 100 North Mansfield Avenue eight blocks to the west. These transactions actually appear to have involved a swap of the properties; in 1929 Dickinson had married Esther Patten Wiley (and adopted her two children), who had built the Mansfield property, which included a pool and tennis court, in 1927
  • After Philip and Esther Dickinson left 234 Muirfield Road in 1934 and moved to La Jolla, the house was rented to Edward J. Bowen Jr., vice-president of an oil-well supply company. He had grown up at 336 South Hudson Avenue, which his namesake father had built in 1924. Bowens and his wife remained at 234 until purchasing 516 South Hudson Avenue in the early '40s
  • On February 24, 1946, the Los Angeles Times reported the sale of 234 Muirfield Road by Esther Dickinson to department-store executive Edward W. Carter for $60,000. Carter and his wife née Christine Dailey moved into 234 with 11-year-old William and 7-year-old Ann
  • An alumnus of U.C.L.A., Harvard, Silverwoods, and the May Company, Edward W. Carter was appointed executive vice-president of Broadway Department Stores Inc., per Women's Wear Daily of March 15, 1946. He became president of the firm the next year and would head Broadway-Hale Stores Inc. after a merger with San Francisco–based Hale Bros. in 1951. Aggressive expansion followed, the eventual Carter Hawley Hale coming to dominate department-store retailing on the west coast. Carter was appointed to the University of California Board of Regents by Governor Earl Warren in March 1952 and would serve for 36 years. Important recipients of his philanthropy include U.C.L.A. and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
  • On March 11, 1957, the Department of Building and Safety issued Edward Carter a permit for a 15-by-38-foot irregularly shaped swimming pool; three days later, Carter was issued a permit for a 15-by-17-foot cabana
  • The Carters' daughter Ann was married to John Murray Huneke at St. James' Episcopal Church on the afternoon of December 23, 1958; a reception followed at 234 Muirfield Road
  • The Carters were divorced by 1962, with she having bought another Hancock Park house for herself; 234 Muirfield Road was listed for sale in classified ads in December 1961. On November 23, 1963, Edward Carter married divorced mother of five Hannah Locke Caldwell in Menlo Park; they would be living in the Bay Area and locally in Bel-Air. Mrs. C. Dailey Carter, as she had styled herself in the way of some divorced women of the era, married Dr. Henry L. Hilty in the chapel of St. James' Church on December 10, 1966, with he settlng into her house at 312 North June Street overlooking the 15th hole of the Wilshire Country Club
  • 234 Muirfield Road was occupied by Dr. William Novick and his wife Carole for several years after the departure of the Carters
  • In 1963, the family of attorney Joseph A. Kean began its 40-year ownership of 234 Muirfield Road 


Illustration: Private Collection