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  • Built in 1923 on Lot 4 in Tract 3819
  • Original commissioner: investor Dolores Rivierre Caples as a speculative venture
  • Architect and contractor: Neither are indicated on the initial building permits issued for 334 Muirfield Road; Dolores Caples had, however, recently completed 631 South Arden Boulevard in Windsor Square, the architect of which was Anne Coble Scott, with Mrs. Caples acting as contractor. Simultaneously with 334 Muirfield, Mrs. Caples would be building 214 North Rossmore Avenue in Hancock Park
  • On July 18, 1923, the Department of Buildings issued Dolores M. Caples a permit for a 24-by-28-foot garage at 334 Muirfield Road; on July 27, Mrs. Caples was issued a permit for an 11-room house. The house appears to have still been under construction the following spring, when on May, 23, 1924, she was issued a permit to change the size of three window in one room and to add a balcony
  • Dolores Rivierre Caples was the daughter of the crafty if resourceful Nellie Patterson Rivierre Higgins, who had become a builder in Los Angeles after a very messy marital career. A week after their marriage in Brooklyn in 1896, she presented her husband Emile Rivierre, apparently a champion bicyclist, with her apparently illegitimate daughter—Dolores—whom he accepted at first. With press reports painting Nellie as an unreliable wife, there was a divorce. She married William Bentley Higgins in Washington State in 1906, divorcing him after his incarceration at San Quentin on a 1919 forgery conviction. Dolores was by this time at odds with her husband Joseph A. Caples, the shiftless, already-once-divorced son of a former mayor of El Paso. Living in Long Beach, they divorced messily in January 1921, she keeping their son Robert and putting her settlement into property development. However Nellie and Dolores came by their capital, mother and daughter turned from developing small residential properties to building more ambitious ones. Dolores built 631 South Arden Boulevard in Windsor Square the year before beginning 334 Muirfield Road in 1923
  • Dolores Caples's spec house at 334 Muirfield Road appears to have become a white elephant even during the unprecedented Los Angeles real estate boom of the 1920s and would become one of those Hancock Park houses that would reappear on the market frequently over the decades. It is unclear as to when Mrs. Caples may have sold the house, but there were numerous attempts to unload the property after its completion, during which time it appears to have been rented. Prominent Hollywood attorney Milton M. Cohen, who had been living at 214 South Van Ness Avenue, occupied 334 Muirfield Road from 1926 to 1929 before moving to Beverly Hills. During this time, classified ads appeared in the Times during the winter of 1927 offering the house for sale. A classified appearing on July 8, 1928, offered the property in another way: "Will exchange $95,000 home at 334 Muirfield Rd..... Modern in every way.... $10,000 worth of drapes, $600 special mirror over fireplace.... Will accept clear vacant or improved property"; the identity of the seller is unclear. Then the seller turned to auctions. Large display ads in the Times announced an auction of the house to take place on October 26, 1928; there was no high bidder. After it was offered for sale in the winter of 1929, auction was again tried; 334 Muirfield Road and its contents were on the block on April 9, 1929, as seen in an advertisement appearing that day in the Times. Interestingly, Dolores Caples was reported in the Times of February 8, 1931—deep into the Depression—to be building a $10,300 house at the southeast corner of Linden Drive and Gregory Way in Beverly Hills. It is still there. (Caples married real estate salesman Jess Myrl Davy that June)


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on April 9, 1929


  • Its owner still unclear, 334 Muirfield Road appears to have remained empty during the early years of the Depression. David C. Price, an accountant, and his family occupied 334 briefly in 1934
  • By the end of 1934, native Austrian Dr. Frederick Waller, president of the Pan-Pacific Oil Company who had become the consul in Los Angeles for his home country the year before, was renting 334 Muirfield Road. (Waller had previously represented Guatemala in Southern California, that consulate being taken over by Paul Tobeler of St. James Park.) On December 18, 1934, Dr. Waller and his wife gave a luncheon at 334 honoring the Vienna Boys' Choir, which was touring the Pacific Coast
  • Retired banker Arthur and Nelle K. Day occupied the house briefly in 1937 (their son Arthur Jr. married Lita Grey Chaplin, Charlie's second wife, in 1938). Walter G. Gastil, Southern California manager of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, rented 334 from 1938 to 1941 before moving to 629 South Lucerne Boulevard in Windsor Square
  • On December 28, 1943, the Department of Building and Safety issued a permit for roof repairs to real estate operator David A. Hamberger as owner of 334 Muirfield Road (Hamberger appears to have bought the house as an investment)
  • Sheet-music dealer Wendell M. Wendel-Smith and his wife Kathryn were living at 334 Muirfield in the mid-1940s
  • A classified advertisement in the Times on September 12, 1948, offered 334 Muirfield Road for sale at an asking price of $42,500
  • Real estate broker Frank J. Buckley and his wife Elizabeth were occupying 334 Muirfield Road by April 1950 and were still listed on voter rolls there in 1962. Buckley dealt in property city-wide but specialized in the mid-Wilshire district. In 1947, he sought to acquire the infamous Barnett house at 644 South Rossmore Avenue but, according to the Times of December 13, 1947, was thwarted in his efforts, perhaps then settling on 334 Muirfield. The Buckleys appears to have been the owners who had 334 on the market in the spring of 1966; classified ads appearing in April did not name a price
  • 334 Muirfield Road was on the market again in late 1970 with an asking price of $115,000; three years later it was being marketed at an asking price of $129,500. In the wake of civil unrest and the Manson murders, the appeal of Hancock Park was a low ebb, one not seen since the Depression. While certainly never crime-free—burglaries have always been common in affluent Los Angeles neighborhoods—the mid Wilshire district by the '70s was seen as particularly vulnerable in the 1970s. The district rebounded and continues striving to keep up with the Westside in terms of image, and manages well in that effort in terms of prices being commanded for 100-year-old housing built for the upper middle class. 334 Muirfield Road was on the market for $1,275,000 in the late winter of 1995, though, unlike the hot market of the covid era, this was lowered by $300,000 two years later. In the spring of 2009, classified ads were citing an asking price of $5,075,000
  • Cited as owner on a permit issued by the Department of Building and Safety on February 26, 1971, for alterations to the entry was Michael Dulien, whose occupation was described by syndicated Hollywood gossip columnist James Bacon in 1973 as "junk dealer." Bacon reported in September of that year that Dulien and his 25-year-old fashion-designer wife Barbara had separated, she now being hotly pursued by 47-year-old Richard Burton between his marriages to Elizabeth Taylor. Owners by 1976 were Alvin and Linda Robinson, who that year added a 16-by-40-foot swimming pool to the property. Owning the house by 2005 was Sam Apt, who made various additions to the residence including a 19-by-19-foot room and a rear bedroom balcony before putting the house on the market in 2009


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT