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  • Built in 1929 on Lot 126 of Tract 8320
  • Architect: Paul Revere Williams
  • Original commissioner: Joseph Brent Banning Jr.
  • Contractor: Howden & Howden, the firm of the brothers William M. and Rollo R. Howden, real estate developers
  • Permits for a 10-room house and a one-story, two-car-garage at 432 North McCadden Place were issued to Joseph Banning Jr. by the Department of Building and Safety on March 25, 1929
  • Joseph Brent Banning Jr. was a grandson of Southern California pioneer Phineas Banning (1830-1885), an early developer of land and water transportation and most notably of port facilities at San Pedro and adjacent Wilmington (founded by him and named after his Delaware birthplace), these towns coming to constitute the Port of Los Angeles before being annexed by the city in 1909; such was Phineas's success that his sons William, Joseph, and Hancock would own Catalina from 1892 until 1915. Joseph Banning's uncle Hancock lived at 240 West Adams Street; Joseph, his wife Alice, his brother William Phineas Banning and his wife Evangeline, and the brothers' mother Katharine Stewart Banning Banning (her father William was Phineas Banning's brother) were also living in the West Adams District (in dwellings on a parcel at the southwest corner of Hoover and West 31st streets, today occupied by U.S.C. housing) when these three households decided that West Adams's residential appeal was finished. The Bannings set their sights on reconstituting the family compound in Hancock Park, which, along with the earlier Windsor Square and Fremont Place developments, among other more modern subdivisions, was absorbing the city's Old Guard seeking fresher digs, Los Angeles's annexation march now having reached the Pacific. The family decided upon the precocious team of architect Paul Williams and builder William Howden—both men barely 35 years old and already known for their exacting talents—to build three distinct houses of similar size (though from the street, ones deceptively large) on North McCadden Place between Oakwood and Rosewood avenues. Joseph Banning's house at 432 was constructed on the east side of the street next to his mother's at 426, these two facing William Banning's at 425
  • After nearly 40 years at 432 North McCadden, Joseph Banning Jr. died at home on March 6, 1969, a month shy of his 80th birthday; a funeral was held in the house two days later. Alice Banning also died at 432; she was 74 when she expired on April 6, 1970


Illustration: Private Collection