PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES


  • Completed in 1924 on the northerly 90 feet of Lot 18 in Tract 3446
  • Original commissioner: Cora Goodrich Clarke, the wife of oilman Robert Davis Clarke, whose family were prominent distillers in his native Peoria. Before moving to California in 1919 on the eve of Prohibition, Robert was associated with the family firm, among the offerings of which were Kickapoo bourbon and Clarke's Pure Rye
  • Architect: John L. De Lario, whose 630 South Rossmore was being built at the same time next door. His 638 South Rossmore was also built in 1924. The Western Construction Company was the contractor for all three houses
  • Curiously, the Clarkes were enumerated at 620 South Rossmore in the 1930 Federal census as having two unmarried children, Robert Davis Clarke Jr., age 30, and Cora G. Clarke, age 28, though neither of these appear in the Clarkes' enumeration in Peoria in 1910 or in 1920 in Los Angeles, where, newly arrived in the city, they were renting a house at 699 South New Hampshire Avenue. Neither would these children be mentioned in Mr. Clarke's 1938 obituaries or in Mrs. Clarke's in 1962
  • Robert Davis Clarke was the sister of Anna Virginia Clarke Keely Taylor, wife of Russell McDonell Taylor of 11 Berkeley Square. Mrs. Taylor committed suicide at home on April 28, 1935; after an unspecified long illness, Robert Clarke died at 620 South Rossmore on April 13, 1938, age 63
  • Cora Goodrich Clarke left 620 South Rossmore in 1940 after the enumeration of the Federal census on April 29. The house and its contents were auctioned in February 1941. Mrs. Clarke died in Los Angeles on July 28, 1962, at the age of 87; her obituary in the Los Angeles Times three days later referred to Mr. and Mrs. C. Clarke Keely—he was the son of Virginia Taylor by her first marriage—as being her nephew and niece. (The Keelys had moved from 11 Berkeley Square to 100 Hudson Place in Hancock Park a few years before, their family retaining that house for several decades; their son Russell David Keely would later own 120 Hudson Place)
  • Hotelier and apartment-house owner William R. Reddig and his wife Ruby acquired 620 South Rossmore at the February 1941 auction or shortly thereafter. Mr. Reddig remained at 620 until his death at 86 on April 14, 1979. Ruby Reddig appears to have still been in possession of the house at the time of her death on September 12, 1990, two months shy of her 96th birthday
  • On building permits issued by the Department of Building and Safety in 1997 and 1999, the Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation is cited as the owner of 620 South Rossmore. A permit for a general rehabilitation of the entire structure was issued on July 28, 1997. Authorization for a new swimming pool was issued on March 17, 1999; a permit for an interior remodeling was issued on April 4, 1999, and one 23 days later for a poolhouse and recreation room. A subsequent owner has added a breakfast room with a deck on top


As seen in the Los Angeles Times on Febraury 16, 1941


Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT