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426 North McCadden Place



  • Built in 1929 on Lot 127 of Tract 8320
  • Architect: Paul Revere Williams
  • Original commissioner: Mrs. Joseph Brent Banning Sr.
  • Howden & Howden, the firm of the brothers William M. and Rollo R. Howden, real estate developers
  • Permits for a 10-room house and a two-story, two-car-garage at 426 North McCadden Place were issued to Mrs. Banning by the Department of Building and Safety on April 18, 1929
  • Katharine Stewart Banning Banning, whose father William was a brother 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. Mrs. Banning's brother- and sister-in-law, Hancock and Anne Banning, lived at 240 West Adams Street; her son Joseph, his wife Alice, and her son William Phineas Banning and his wife Evangeline were also living in the West Adams District during the 1920s (in adjacent dwellings at the southwest corner of Hoover and West 31st streets, on a parcel 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 their 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 as it sought fresher digs, Los Angeles's annexation march now having reached the Pacific. The family decided upon the 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. Mrs. Banning's house at 426 was constructed on the east side of the street next to Joseph's at 432, these two facing William Banning's at 425
  • Katharine Banning was still in possession of 426 North McCadden when she died at Good Samaritan Hospital at the age of 88 on November 11, 1954. Her funeral was held at 426 two days later


Illustration: Private Collection