PLEASE SEE OUR COMPANION HISTORIES



  • Built in 1930 on Lot 3 in Tract 3446
  • Original commissioner: Edna Bicknell Bagg. Mrs. Bagg was the widow of Lieutenant Commander Charles Perry Bagg, a Navy surgeon
  • Architect: None is identified on the original building permits for 322 South Rossmore Avenue; a rubber stamp reading "Not to be filled in unless with name of Certified Architect or Licensed Engineer under State Act" appears on the documents instead of the name of a specific designer. This indicates that a designer employed by the contractor was responsible for the project
  • Contractor: The A. D. Chisholm Company. Alexander Chisholm had been partnered during the 1920s with Evan L. Meikle and William H. Fortine, their contracting, building, and real estate development firm erecting a considerable number of Los Angeles residences. By 1930, Chisholm was in business on his own
  • On September 25, 1930, the Department of Building and Safety issued permits to Mrs. Edna B. Bagg for a 10-room residence and a 20-by-30-foot garage. On both permits "322" is scratched out in favor of "324" as the address; by the time Mrs. Bagg, her sons Charles and John, and daughter Marion Nancy Bagg moved into the house in 1931, the address was officially 322. The family was moving from 1024 Arapahoe Street on the north side of today's Pico-Union district
  • The landscaping at 322 South Rossmore was apparently mature enough by the summer of 1931 to allow for a wedding in the Baggs' "lovely gardens" (per the Evening Express) on September 19, when Nancy Bagg married insurance man McDowell Venable Eastman at home
  • Mrs. Bagg's 96-year-old mother, Nannie Bicknell, lived up the street from her daughter at 166 South Rossmore, which she had occupied since 1923; she died at home on November 1, 1931. Nancy and McDowell Eastman would move into her house from Santa Monica. (The Eastmans relocated from there to 127 Fremont Place in the late '40s)
  • Still living at 322 South Rossmore, Edna Jane Bicknell Bagg died at Good Samaritan on December 8, 1949, age 75. Her sizable obituary, headlined "Early Resident of City Dies," appeared in the Times the next day. A native Angeleno, she had been born in downtown Los Angeles, the daughter of real estate attorney and investor John D. Bicknell. Bicknell, who had a hand in developing Monrovia and Azusa, was a founder of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. After a few years as the law partner of U.S. senator-to-be Stephen M. White, Bicknell was by 1890 partnered with Walter Jones Trask, their firm evolving into Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
  • Succeeding Edna Bagg at 322 South Rossmore were Dr. and Mrs. Maurice W. Nugent. Dr. Nugent was a professor of opthalmology at the College of Medical Evangelists, which evolved into the White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights; his Times obituary of September 3, 1979, suggests that he was the developer of the small contact lens, although proper credit appears to belong to his assistant Dr. Kevin Tuohy. Mrs. Nugent was known as Lucia Lawrence, an noted interior designer. The couple remained at 322 South Rossmore until 1967. (Curiously, the Nugents appear to have divorced just weeks before his death in 1979)
  • Owners after the Nugents have added a swimming pool to the property and a large family room to the rear of the house


Illustration: Private Collection